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THE    "SUB' 


ii 


99 


CRUMPS 

The  Plain  Story  of  a  Canadian 
who  went 


By  LOUIS  KEENE 

Canadian  Expeditionary  Force 

WITH  A   PREFATORY  NOTE  BY 
GENERAL  LEONARD  WOOD 

Illustrated  by  the  Author 


Boston  and  New  York 
Houghton  Mifflin  Company 


COPYRIGHT,   I9I7>  BY  LOUIS  KERNE 
ALL    RIGHTS    KKSKRVED 

Published  November  iqif 


p 

Prefatory  Note 

Headquarters  Southeastern  Department 
Charleston,  S.C. 

nth  August,  191 7 
Captain  Keene  has  made  an  interesting 
contribution  to  the  Hterature  of  the  present  war 
in  his  account  of  service,  which  covers  the  ex- 
perience of  a  young  officer  in  the  making  and  on 
the  battle  front,  —  the  transformation  of  an 
artist  into  a  first-class  machine-gun  officer.  He 
covers  the  training  period  at  home  and  abroad 
and  the  work  at  the  front.  This  direct  and  in- 
teresting account  should  serv^e  to  bring  home  to 
all  of  us  an  appreciation  of  how  much  has  to  be 
done  before  troops  can  be  made  effective  for 
modem  war,  the  cost  of  unpreparedness,  and 
the  disadvantage  under  which  troops,  partially 
equipped,  labor  when  they  meet  highly  organ- 
ized ones,  prepared,  even  to  the  last  detail,  for 
all  the  exigencies  of  modern  war.  It  also  brings 


962560 


Prefatory  Note 


out  the  splendid  spirit  of  Canada,  the  Mother 
Country,  and  the  distant  Colonies,  —  the  spirit 
of  the  Empire,  united  and  determined  in  a  just 
cause. 

This  and  similar  accounts  should  serve  to 
make  clear  to  us  the  wisdom  of  the  admonition 
of  Washington  and  many  others:  "In  time  of 
peace  prepare  for  war." 

Many  young  Americans  are  about  to  undergo 
experiences  similar  to  those  of  Captain  Keene, 
and  a  perusal  of  this  modest  and  straight-for- 
ward narrative  will  help  in  the  great  work  of 
getting  ready. 

Leonard  Wood, 
Maj.-Gen.  U.S.A. 


Illustrations 


THE  "SUB" Frontispiece 

THE     CANADIAN,    JOHNNIE    CANUCK,    THE 
AMERICAN,  AND  THE  ANZAC       ....      6 

THE  TRANSPORT  FLEET lo 

AT  DEVONPORT 26 

THE  LORRY 72 

BRINGING  UP  A  MOTOR  MACHINE  GUN  .      .    90 

"WIPERS"  94 

WHAT'S  THE  USE? 106 

A  FRENCH  SOLDIER 118 

"WHIZ-BANGS" 124 

THE  "CRUMP" 128 

MR.  TOMMY  ATKINS 144 

vii 


"CRUMPS" 

The  Plain  Story  of  a  Canadian 
who  went 

THE "  Laurentian  Mountains  m  the 
Province  of  Quebec  are  noted  for 
their  beauty,  fine  hunting  and  fish- 
ing, and  are  the  stamping-grounds  for  many- 
artists  from  the  States  and  Eastern  Canada. 
It  was  in  this  capacity  that  I  was  working 
during  the  hot  summer  of  1914.  AH  through 
June  and  July  I  sketched  with  my  father. 
Other  than  black  flies  my  only  worry  was 
the  price  of  my  tubes  of  color. 

We  usually  received  our  newspapers  two 
or  three  days  after  publication;  consequently 
we  were  poorly  posted  on  worldly  happen- 
ings. Suddenly  the  war  clouds  gathered  and 
almost  before  we  knew  it  they  became  so 
threatening  that  we  grew  restless,  and  even 
went  in  to  the  depot  to  get  our  papers  so 
that  we  could  have  the  news  sooner. 

I 


Crumps 

The  assassination  of  the  Austrian  Crown 
Prince  and  the  subsequent  events  were  ex- 
citing, but  it  was  only  when  Russia  sent 
that  one  word  "Mobilize"  to  Serbia  that 
we  suspected  serious  results.  Even  the 
summer  visitors  from  the  States  exhibited 
signs  of  excitement,  yet  they  were  skeptical 
of  the  chances  of  war;  that  is,  war  that  would 
really  affect  us!  My  newspaper  in  Montreal 
wired  for  me  to  come  down  to  do  war  car- 
toons and  I  left  my  father  and  hiked  to  the 
depot. 

The  Montreal  train  was  crowded  and  con- 
versation centered  on  the  one  topic,  War; 
the  English  Navy's  ability  to  maintain  her 
rule  of  the  seas,  and  what  would  Canada  do. 
A  young  Austrian  reservist  two  seats  away 
was  telling  some  people  in  a  loud  voice  how 
much  he  wanted  to  get  into  it.  He  was  going 
back  to  answer  the  call.  And  I  had  already 
begun  to  hear  my  country's  call. 

A  newsboy  boarding  the  train  at  a  junction 
was  overwhelmed  and  succeeded  in  getting 
twenty-five   cents    a    copy   for   his   papers. 

2 


Crumps 

Montreal  teemed  with  suppressed  anxiety 
and  every  hour  fresh  news  was  posted. 
Special  bulletin  boards  were  put  up  on  store 
fronts.  Already  men  in  uniform  were  seen 
in  the  street.    And  men  were  trying  to  enlist. 

The  war  fever  was  rising  steadily;  the 
chief  occupation  of  Canadians  in  those  days 
was  watching  the  bulletin  boards.  Rumors 
of  sea  fights,  ultimatums,  disasters,  and 
victories  were  common.  The  Kaiser  seemed 
to  declare  war  on  the  world  at  the  rate  of 
three  countries  a  day. 

On  the  night  of  August  4th,  as  I  was 
putting  the  finishing  touches  on  a  cartoon, 
a  friend  burst  into  the  room:  —  "Come  out 
of  here!  Something  must  happen  any 
minute  now."  We  marched  downtown,  — • 
everybody  marched  in  those  days;  walking 
was  abolished  in  its  favor.  One  met  demon- 
strations everywhere,  large  crowds  of  cheer- 
ing men  with  flags,  victrolas  at  shop  windows 
played  patriotic  airs,  and  soldiers  with  civ- 
ilians crowded  before  the  bulletin  boards 
singing    the   national    anthems   with    great 

3 


Crumps 

enthusiasm.  The  King  had  declared  war 
and  his  message  to  the  fleet  had  just  been 
put  up !  Newspaper  extras  were  given  away 
by  thousands  and  movies  of  the  British 
Navy  were  shown  on  the  street.  Any  one 
who  thought  the  British  could  not  enthuse, 
changed  his  mind  then. 

The  audiences  at  the  theatres  and  moving 
picture  houses  on  receipt  of  the  news  rose 
simultaneously  and  sang  the  national  an- 
thems, then  cheered  themselves  hoarse. 
These  were  the  first  days  of  the  war.  Sev- 
eral battalions  of  militia  were  called  out  and 
posted  to  protect  the  bridges  and  grain 
elevators.  Battalions  were  raised  over- 
night, and  so  many  recruits  came  forward 
that  men  were  refused  by  the  score.  Eng- 
land was  immediately  offered  ten  battal- 
ions. Then  an  army  division  was  possible. 
The  Militia  Department  suddenly  became 
a  hive  of  industry.  Men  with  all  kinds  of 
business  capacity  tendered  their  services 
gratis,  and  the  Canadian  war  machine, 
without   the   experience   of   previous    cam- 

4 


Crumps 

paigns,  took  shape.  They  worked  night  and 
day  bringing  everlasting  credit  on  themselves. 
Banks  offered  full  pay  to  their  employees  in 
uniform,  and  this  example  was  widely  fol- 
lowed. The  principle  prompting  this  action 
being,  "It's  our  country;  if  we  can't  fight 
ourselves,  we  will  help  others  to  fight  for 
her." 

Existent  camp  sites  were  inadequate,  hence 
new  ones  were  necessary.  We  had  a  few, 
but  none  were  big  enough.  We  bought 
Valcartier,  one  of  the  best  sites  in  the  world, 
which  was  equipped  almost  over-night  with 
water  service,  electric  light  and  drainage. 
The  longest  rifle  range  in  the  world  with 
three  and  one-half  miles  of  butts  was  con- 
structed. Railroad  sidings  were  put  in  and 
35,000  troops  from  all  over  the  Dominion 
poured  into  it.  Think  of  it,  —  Canada  with 
her  population  of  seven  and  one-half  millions 
offering  35,000  volunteers  the  first  few  weeks, 
without  calling  out  her  militia.  And  even 
to-day  the  militia  are  yet  to  be  called. 
Thus    every  Canadian  who   has   served  at 

5 


Crumps 

the  front  has  been  a  volunteer.  England 
accepted  an  army  division.  [Fifteen  hun- 
dred qualified  officers  were  told  that  they 
would  have  to  stay  and  train  men  for  the 
next  contingent.  But  this  was  not  fighting. 
They  were  dissatisfied.  They  resigned  their 
commissions  and  went  as  privates.  Uni- 
forms, boots,  rifles  and  equipment  were 
found  for  everybody.  Every  man  was 
trained  as  much  as  possible  in  the  time 
allowed,  and  within  six  weeks  of  the  decla- 
ration of  war,  guns,  horses  and  35,000  men 
were  going  forward  to  avenge  Belgium. 

With  me  the  question  of  signing  up  was 
a  big  one.  In  the  first  place,  I  wanted  to 
go;  I  wanted  to  go  quickly.  Several  other 
fellows  and  myself  had  decided  upon  a 
certain  battalion.  But  much  to  our  dis- 
gust and  regret  we  were  informed  that 
enlistments  had  stopped  only  a  short  time 
before. 

Then  came  the  announcement  of  the 
organization  of  the  First  Auto  Machine  Gun 
Brigade,    the   generous    gift   of    several   of 

6 


THE  CANADIAN 


JOHNNIE  CANUCK 


THE  AMERICAN 


THE  AXZAC 


Crumps 

Canada's  most  prominent  citizens,  and  it 
was  in  this  unit  that  I  enlisted  with  my 
friend  Pat,  a  six-foot,  husky  Scotchman, 
with  the  fighting  blood  of  the  kilties  very 
near  the  surface.  We  were  immediately 
transported  to  Ottawa  in  company  with 
fifty  other  picked  men  from  Montreal.  At 
Ottawa  the  complement  of  our  battery  was 
completed  upon  the  arrival  of  one  hundred 
more  men  from  Ottawa  and  Toronto.  Here 
we  trained  until  it  came  time  for  us  to  move 
to  Montreal,  and  there  the  battery  was  em- 
barked on  board  the  Corinthian  with  a  unit 
of  heavy  artillery.  We  sailed  down  to  Quebec 
where  we  joined  the  other  ships  assembled 
to  take  over  the  First  Canadian  Contingent. 

Corinthian,  Wednesday,  Seft.  joth,  zgi/f..  ■ 

My  dear  Mother  and  Father:  — 

i 

We  are  now  steaming  down  the  St.  Law- 
rence.   No  one  knows  where  we  are  going. 

Our  fleet  is  a  wonderful  sight.  All  the 
ships  are  painted  war  gray  —  sides,  boats 
and  funnels.     We  are  expecting  to  pick  up 

7 


Crumps 

the  warships  which  are  to  convoy  us  across 
at  Father  Point,  somewhere  near  where  the 
Empress  of  Ireland  was  sunk. 

Quebec  looked  very  fine.  The  big  guns 
were  being  hoisted  into  boats,  horses  em- 
barking, and  battalion  after  battalion  arriv- 
ing and  going  aboard.  Those  who  came  from 
Valcartier  have  had  a  rough  time.  They 
actually  look  as  if  they  had  come  through  a 
campaign.  It  gave  me  thrills  all  day  to  see 
these  fine  men  come  through  the  dock-gates 
with  a  steady  swing.  It  is  a  magnificent 
contribution  to  any  army.  It's  good  to 
think  of  all  these  men  coming  at  their  coun- 
try's call. 

Some  day,  if  I  get  back,  I  want  to  paint  a 
picture  of  the  fleet  assembled  at  Quebec. 
The  grays  and  greens  looked  really  beau- 
tiful. Quebec,  the  city  of  history  and  the 
scene  of  many  big  battles,  views  with  dis- 
,  dain  the  Canadian  patriotism  in  the  present 
crisis,  and  we  had  no  send-off,  no  flags  and  no 
bands. 

This  letter  will  not  be  mailed  for  ten  days, 
8 


Crumps 

until  we  are  well  on  the  way  over.  We  are 
crowded,  and  if  we  are  going  through  the 
tropics  we  shall  have  a  bad  time;  it  is  cold 
now,  so  we  don't  notice  the  congestion. 

We  had  one  hundred  and  forty  horses 
aboard  and  two  batteries  of  heavy  artillery, 
besides  our  own  armored  cars.  All  the  trans- 
ports are  crowded.  We  were  passed  by  about 
ten  of  the  other  boats,  and  as  they  did  so  we 
cheered  each  other.  The  thin  lines  of  khaki 
on  all  the  ships  will  make  a  name  for  them- 
selves.   I  'm  proud  I  am  one  of  them. 

We  've  had  a  big  dose  of  vaccine  pumped 
into  our  arms  to-day.  This  will  be  the  last 
letter  I  send  before  I  arrive,  wherever  we  are 
going. 

The  Corinthian  sailed  from  Quebec  to 
Father  Point,  where  a  patrol  boat  arrived 
with  orders.  We  then  sailed  into  the  Gulf, 
but  toward  evening  we  turned  into  the  coast. 
When  we  passed  Fame  Point  Light  a  small 
boat,  which  afterwards  turned  out  to  be 
another  patrol  boat,  sailing  without  lights, 

9 


Crumps 

flashed  further  orders  to  us.  The  Corinthian 
immediately  turned  round  and  headed  back. 
The  minute  the  patrol  boat's  signal  light  went 
out  we  were  unable  to  distinguish  it  from  the 
sea.  The  coloring  is  a  good  protection;  even 
a  boat,  close  to,  sailing  without  lights,  it  is 
impossible  to  pick  out.  Apparently  our 
orders  were  to  cruise  around  until  daylight 
and  then  sail  for  the  Bay  of  Gaspe,  and  this 
morning  at  daybreak  we  sailed  into  that 
beautiful,  natural  harbor,  which  is  big  enough 
to  accommodate  the  entire  British  fleet. 
I  I  expect  that  to  the  villagers  living  around 
this  harbor  all  events  will  date  from  to-day 
—  to-day,  when  the  wonderful  sight  of 
twenty-five  ocean  liners  drawn  up  in  battle- 
ship formation  in  this  quiet  place,  deserted 
except  for  an  occasional  visit  from  a  river 
steamer  or  fishing  craft,  greeted  their  gaze. 

Five  gray  fighting  ships  are  mounting 
guard,  and  by  their  signals  and  pinnaces 
chasing  backward  and  forward  between  the 
troopers  are  bossing  the  show.    A  corporal, 

lO 


^^ 

1 

^^^^^^^Ir 

1. 

p^^^^^Hk  .Ft"- 

■31 

001$  tfSNP                     ^*  '^rt^i^J^^^..<.-^ 

THE   rk.wsi'ORT  fleet 


Crumps 

a  South  African  War  veteran,  as  we  looked 

at  them,  quoted  Kipling's 

"The  liner  she's  a  lady 
With  the  paint  upon  'er  face, 
The  man  o'  war's  'er  'usband 
And  keeps  'er  in  'er  place." 

Towards  noon  a  smart  launch  came  along- 
side. Even  at  a  distance  the  boys  were  quick 
to  recognize  our  popular  minister  of  militia, 
Sam  Hughes,  and  a  thundering  cheer  rang 
out.  With  him  were  several  soldiers  who 
threw  bundles  of  papers  aboard.  These  were 
printed  copies  of  his  farewell  to  the  troops. 
His  launch  sailed  by  the  ship,  and  then  on  to 
the  next  and  so  on,  through  the  fleet. 

Our  orders  forbade  the  display  of  lights 
or  even  striking  of  matches  after  6  p.m.; 
consequently  all  lights  were  masked  to-night 
on  the  vessels,  except  those  on  the  Royal 
Edward.  The  minute  her  lights  were  put  out 
the  Bay  resumed  its  normal  condition,  not 
even  the  outlines  of  the  vessels  being  visible. 

A  press  photographer  on  a  launch  has  been 
taking  pictures  all  the  afternoon.     Sailed  at 

1 1 


Crumps 

five  o'clock  this  afternoon  just  as  the  twi- 
light commenced.  We  sailed  out  in  three 
lines.  The  convoy  is  now  under  way  and  we 
extend  as  far  as  can  be  seen  in  both  direc- 
tions. We  have  two  military  police  patrols 
whose  chief  duty  is  to  see  that  no  matches 
are  struck  on  deck.  Bill,  who  smokes  more 
matches  than  tobacco,  has  had  to  go  below  so 
often  to  light  his  pipe,  that  he  has  decided  to 
do  without  smoking  on  deck.  It  is  surprising 
how  far  a  match  struck  in  the  dark  will  show. 
We  noticed  how  matches  struck  on  the  other 
ships  showed  up  last  night.  All  our  port- 
holes are  screwed  down  with  the  heavy- 
weather  irons  and  those  of  the  second-class 
cabins  are  covered  with  blankets.  The  au- 
thorities are  taking  no  chances.  ' 

We  are  having  physical  drills  and  lectures 
all  day,  and  we  are  working  just  as  hard  on 
board  as  we  would  ashore.  Our  speedwill  not 
be  more  than  nine  knots;  the  speed  of  the 
slowest  vessel  regulating  the  speed  of  the 
whole  fleet. 

12 


Crumps 

Matches  are  getting  very  scarce.  We 
complained  about  the  tea  to  the  orderly 
officer  to-day;  milk  is  running  out,  so  the 
tea  is  made  with  milk  and  sugar  in.  We 
asked  to  have  the  three  separate,  but  we  were 
told  that  if  we  complained  we  would  have  all 
three  taken  away.  As  a  floor  stain  it's  great, 
but  as  tea  it's  a  failure. 

We  are  quartered  in  the  steerage  part  of 
the  ship  and  our  food  is  in  keeping.  It  is 
really  remarkable  how  they  can  consistently 
get  that  same  coal-oil  flavor  in  all  the  food. 

War  news  is  signaled  from  ship  to  ship  by 
semaphore  flags  by  day.  It  is  posted  up  in 
the  guard  room  daily.  The  news  that  the 
Indian  troops  landed  in  France  on  the 
29th  of  September  was  the  chief  item  on  the 
bulletin  yesterday.  We're  short  on  things 
to  read.  Scraps  of  newspapers  are  devoured, 
even  to  the  advertisements.  In  our  cabin  we 
have  a  "Saturday  Evening  Post"  of  Sep- 
tember 26th  which  is  thumb-marked  and 
torn,  but  it  is  still  treasured.    We  were  not 

13 


Crumps 

allowed  to  bring  anything  besides  our  kit  on 
board  on  account  of  the  limited  space. 

Reveille  blows  at  six  o'clock  and  we  have 
to  answer  the  roll-call  at  6.15.  The  idea  is, 
that  if  the  men  get  up  and  walk  about,  they 
are  not  so  likely  to  get  seasick,  but  in  spite 
of  that  quite  a  number  are  sick.  We  have 
on  board  one  hundred  of  our  brigade;  two 
hundred  and  sixteen  heavy  artillery  and  one 
hundred  and  forty  horses,  together  with  artil- 
lery officers  and  equipment.  The  horses  take 
up  the  same  space  which  in  ordinary  times 
is  occupied  by  humans.  Otherwise,  we 
should  have  a  great  many  more  troops.  Our 
destination  is  still  a  mystery.  We're  a  fleet 
without  a  port. 

Have  just  been  ordered  on  fatigue  to  take 
a  prisoner  on  deck  for  exercise.  He  is  to  be 
tried  by  court-martial  to-morrow  for  striking 
a  sergeant.  All  day  he  is  kept  locked  up  and 
only  allowed  out  at  night  for  exercise,  under 
escort.  The  escort  consists  of  two  men  and  a 
non-com.  While  on  this  job  we  watched  the 
signalers  flashing  the  war  news  from  the  stem 

14 


Crumps 

of  our  boat  to  the  bridge  of  the  next  astern, 
the  Virginian.  The  news  is  flashed  at  night 
by  the  lamps  —  short  and  long  flashes.  The 
news  is  picked  up  by  wireless  on  the  flagship, 
the  Charybdis,  at  the  head  of  our  line  and 
signaled  back  from  ship  to  ship. 

This  is  the  list  of  the  fleet.  It  is  written 
here  in  the  order  in  which  they  are  sailing. 
Three  warships  are  heading  the  fleet;  the 
flagship  is  the  H.M.S.  Charybdis,  com- 
manded by  Admiral  Wemyss,  who  distin- 
guished himself  a  few  weeks  ago  in  the  Battle 
of  Heligoland. 


H.M.S.  Diana 

H.M.S.  Eclipse 

H.M.S.  Charybdis 

Caribbean 

Megantic 

Scotian 

Atlienia 

Ruthenia 

Arcadian 

Royal  Edward 

Bermudian 

Zealand 

Franconia 

Alaunia 

Corinthian »     H.M.S.  Glory 

Canada 

Ivernia 

Virginian 

Monmouth 

Scandinavian 

Sasconia 

Manitou 

Sicilian 

Grampian 

Tyrolia 

Montezuma 

Andania 

Tunisian 

Lapland 

Montreal 

Laurcntic 

Cassandra 

Laconia 
Royal  George 

H.M.S.  Talbot 

>  The  traniport  on  which  I  wu  shipped. 


The  H.M.S.  Glory,  the  vessel  on  our  star- 
board beam,  altered  her  course  to-day  and 

15 


Crumps 

held  up  a  tramp  steamer.  We  could  just 
see  the  two  vessels  through  our  glasses. 
Apparently  everything  was  all  right  as  the 
tramp  was  allowed  to  go  on  her  way  after- 
wards. 

We  are  all  given  our  boat  stations.  This 
afternoon  a  submarine  alarm  was  sounded. 
Everybody  on  board,  including  the  stewards, 
had  to  drop  everything  and  chase  to  [the 
boats.  In  the  excitement  a  cook  shot  a 
"billy"  of  soup  over  an  officer's  legs,  much 
to  our  silent  delight. 

Thinking  it  over,  it  will  be  remarkable  if 
the  Germans  allow  us  to  cross  without 
making  some  attempt  to  sink  a  few  trans- 
ports. Besides  the  actual  loss  of  the  men, 
the  demoralizing  effect  it  will  have  on  the 
recruiting  would  count  a  great  deal.  No 
man  likes  to  be  shot  or  drowned  without  a 
show. 

I  am  writing  this  in  my  cabin,  which  is  only 
nine  feet  by  six  feet  and  in  which  six  of  us 
sleep  at  night.    Besides  living  in  it  we  have 

i6 


Crumps 

to  keep  all  our  equipment  clean,  which  is 
some  job ! 

About  eleven  this  morning  a  commotion 
occurred  in  the  middle  line.  The  cruiser 
heading  it  and  the  second  ship,  the  Royal 
Edward,  turned  back.  Also  several  other 
boats  turned  in  their  course.  As  we  have 
very  little  excitement  we  hoped  It  might  be 
a  German  attack,  for  we  all  want  to  see  a 
naval  battle.  I  looked  at  the  cruiser  through 
powerful  glasses  and  saw  sailors  fixing  up 
the  starboard  lifeboat,  so  we  presumed  that 
it  was  simply  a  case  of  "man  overboard." 

A  big  cruiser  has  joined  our  fleet  and  is 
acting  as  a  flank  guard  about  three  miles 
away  from  our  starboard  side. 

We  have  a  great  deal  of  physical  exercise 
in  spite  of  the  rolling  of  the  deck.  This 
morning,  while  in  the  middle  of  it  I  was  called 
away  to  dress  and  form  part  of  an  escort  to 
the  prisoner  who  was  to  be  tried  by  field 
court-martial  to-day.  The  court  was  very 
dignified,  and  it  took  a  long  time  owing  to 
the    inexperience    of    the    officers    in    such 

17 


Crumps 

matters.  It  was  the  first  court-martial  I 
have  seen,  —  the  proceedings  are  strictly- 
legal,  being  conducted  according  to  the  book, 
and  with  the  officers  wearing  their  swords. 
The  poor  devil  expects  two  years. 

We  have  been  pitching  and  tossing  a  great 
deal  to-day.  Physical  exercising  on  the  slop- 
ing decks  is  becoming  a  mighty  risky  thing. 

Quite  a  number  of  the  transports  have  guns 
mounted  on  board  so  they  are  not  entirely 
dependent  on  the  cruisers.  It  looks  as  if  we 
are  sailing  north  of  the  usual  trade  routes. 
I  have  just  heard  that  five  more  battleships 
are  on  the  starboard  beam.  They  came  into 
sight  early  this  morning,  but  have  since 
been  out  of  sight.  We  are  sailing  north  of 
the  trade  routes. 

The  fleet  Is  being  Increased.  All  ships  are 
stopped.  Those  sailing  west  are  allowed  to 
go  after  being  boarded;  those  going  in  the 
same  direction  as  ourselves  are  made  to  fall 
Into  line,  so  there  will  be  no  danger  of  the 
news  of  our  sailing  reaching  Europe  ahead 


Crumps 

of  us.  If  we  continue  to  pick  up  ships  sailing 
in  our  direction,  the  fleet  will  be  enormous 
by  the  time  we  arrive  at  our  unknown 
destination.  We  sailed  two  hundred  and 
twelve  miles  the  last  twenty-four  hours. 

Two  more  transports  have  joined  us. 
They  came  from  Newfoundland.  I  hear 
that  we  now  have  forty-three  ships  in  the 
fleet.  We  sail  at  ten  cables'  length  apart, 
about  one  thousand  yards. 

We  are  getting  into  more  dangerous  water 
evidently.  Early  this  morning  the  Royal 
George  steamed  up  from  the  end  of  the  line 
and  took  up  a  position  at  the  head  of  the 
fleet,  but  in  line  with  the  battleship  Glory 
about  three  miles  away  on  the  port.  The 
Laurentic  took  up  a  similar  position  on  the 
starboard.  Both  these  ships  are  armored 
and  have  guns  mounted  on  them.  They 
are  being  used   as   scouts. 

We  all  rushed  up  on  deck  to  see  a  cruiser 
pass  close  to  us  this  midday.  It  was  a  mag- 
nificent "sight.  She  was  either  the  H. M.S.  Bris- 
tol or  the  H.M.S.  Essex ;  her  name  was  painted 

19 


Crumps 

out.  The  bluejackets  were  massed  on  the 
decks  forward  and  as  she  went  by  the  marines 
band  played  "The  Maple  Leaf  Forever." 
We  returned  cheers  with  the  sailors.  It 
gives  you  a  great  thrill  to  see  a  British  ship 
and  to  have  the  knowledge  of  what  it  repre- 
sents. To  be  British  is  a  great  thing,  and 
I'm  proud  to  think  that  I'm  going  to  fight 
for  my  country.  When  this  war  is  over  and 
men  are  talking  round  a  table,  it  will  be, 
"Where  were  you  fighting  during  the  war?" 
not  "Did  you  fight  during  the  war?" 

I'm  in  a  gun-cleaning  squad  every  after- 
noon. To-day  I  cleaned  the  machine  gun  on 
which  I'm  second  gunner.  We  treat  our 
machine  guns  as  if  they  were  pets.  No  one 
will  ever  be  able  to  say  that  my  gun  is  dirty. 
It  will  probably  be  my  best  friend  some  day. 

The  finding  of  the  court-martial  was  read 
out  to  us  on  full  parade  this  afternoon. 
First  the  "Heavies"  were  lined  up  on  all 
sides  of  the  deck,  then  the  "Mosquitos," 
as  the  Machine  Gunners  are  called,  lined  up 

20 


Crumps 

inside;  the  prisoner  between  an  escort  was 
led  up  in  the  center.  It  was  wonderfully 
impressive.  I  felt  that  I  was  to  witness  the 
condemning  of  a  fellow  soldier  to  a  number 
of  years  of  hard  labor.  Over  the  whole 
assembly  there  came  a  deathlike  silence  and 
the  finding  of  the  court  was  read  to  us  by  an 
officer,  the  sentence  being  thirty-six  days! 

The  second  steward  told  me  that  it  took 
two  hundred  carpenters  twelve  hours  to  tear 
down  the  cabins  and  fix  up  horse  fittings. 
First  the  authorities  made  arrangements  to 
ship  a  thousand  troops  on  this  ship  We're 
crowded  as  we  are  now  with  only  three 
hundred  odd.  I  hate  to  think  what  it  would 
have  been  like  with  a  thousand. 

Early  this  morning  a  large  man-o'-war 
came  up  on  the  port  at  a  speed  that  made 
everything  else  seem  to  stop.  We  have  now 
battleships  on  all  sides.  This  ship,  although 
a  long  way  off,  looks  tremendous.  She  is  one 
of  the  latest  super-dreadnaughts. 

I  was  on  guard  last  night  when  one  of  the 

21 


Crumps 

cruisers  came  alongside  to  talk  to  the 
captain  about  having  lights  showing  in  some 
of  the  ports.  I  enjoyed  it  immensely,  for  I 
discovered  that  the  British  Navy,  true  to 
tradition,  was  still  able  to  maintain  its  high 
level  of  profanity.  The  ship  is  in  pitch 
darkness  and  there  is  no  moon.  On  deck  it's 
almost  impossible  to  walk  it's  so  dark. 
To  night  is  supposed  to  be  the  night  on 
which  the  Germans  are  going  to  make  a 
raid.  I  am  going  to  sleep  on  deck  so  that 
I  shall  not  miss  anything.  I'd  hate  to  miss 
the  chance  of  seeing  a  naval  engagement. 
I  can't  see  how  the  Germans  can  possibly 
let  a  chance  go  by.  A  nervy  cruiser  could 
sink  any  amount  of  ships.  If  the  British 
Navy  were  up  against  us  they  would  have 
had  a  cut  in  before  now. 

Slept  on  deck  last  night.  Nothing  hap- 
pened except  that  early  this  morning  a 
French  cruiser  joined  us,  and  I  got  covered 
with  smuts  from  the  smokestack. 

The  Admiral  has  received  one  hundred 
and  twenty-sLx  words  of  war  news,  but  will 

22 


Crumps 

not  let  us  have  them.  Probably  they're 
disastrous.  We  break  up  to-night  or  to- 
morrow. It's  scarcely  likely  that  the  whole 
fleet  will  be  taken  to  one  port  at  the  same 
time. 

That  super-dreadnaught  passed  down  the 
columns  to-day.  She  is  of  tremendous  size 
and  travels  at  high  speed.  She  is  probably 
the  Queen  Mary. 

Expect  to  see  land  Wednesday. 

Blowing  a  gale.  All  day  the  spendrift  has 
been  blowing  over.  The  decks  have  been 
too  wet  for  parades,  thank  God!  All  the  way 
over  we  have  had  physical  exercise,  some- 
times as  much  as  four  hours  a  day.  We're 
all  in  fine  physical  condition. 

To-day  we  were  allowed  to  wash  our 
clothes.  I  can  see  the  advantage  of  khaki 
now.  Even  after  working  hard  on  my 
clothes,  my  underwear  is  still  dark  white. 
The  rails  were  covered  with  underwear 
and  socks  when  the  storm  started.  Now 
every  square  inch  below  is  used  for  drying 

23 


Crumps 

clothes.  Even  the  electric  lights  are  fes- 
tooned. We  have  a  final  kit  inspection 
to-morrow  and  then  we  pack  for  disem- 
barkation. We  are  only  about  one  hundred 
miles  from  the  "Bishop's  Light." 

It  has  been  a  very  long  voyage  and  we 
have  been  very  cramped.  All  our  equipment 
has  to  be  carried  in  our  cabins.  Try  sleeping 
six  men  with  all  their  outfit  in  a  cabin  nine 
feet  by  six  feet.  The  ship  carpenter  has  a 
standing  job  to  repair  our  cabin.  We  have 
rough-housed  so  much  that  his  attention 
was  continually  necessary.  The  trip  has 
been  so  long  that  we  are  now  beginning  to 
hate  each  other.  I  went  down  in  the  stoke- 
hole and  the  engine-room.  Even  amongst 
the  whirling  machines  it  was  more  peaceful 
than  in  our  quarters.  It  seems  months  since 
I  was  in  Montreal  last. 

Dear  Old  England  in  sight! 
We're  passing  the  Lizard  now. 
The  kit  has  all  been  inspected  and  we  hope 
to  land  to-morrow  some  time. 

24 


Crumps 

We're  lying  in  the  historic  harbor  of 
Plymouth;  arrived  here  about  two  hours 
ago.  We're  surrounded  by  fast  little  torpedo- 
boat  destroyers,  which  are  chasing  round  us 
all  the  time  like  dogs  loosened  from  a  chain. 
The  breakwater  has  searchlights  mounted 
on  each  end  and  fixed  lights  are  playing 
from  the  shore.  As  the  lights  occasionally 
flash  up  the  ships  in  the  bay,  it  is  as  bright 
as  day.  Nobody  is  allowed  ashore,  not  even 
the  officers.  We  may  go  on  to  Southampton, 
only  we  must  get  there  before  five  at  night. 
After  that  time  nothing  is  allowed  in. 

Sailed  at  daybreak  on  to  Devonport. 
Most  of  the  transports  are  now  lying  in  pairs 
at  anchor  in  the  harbor.  We're  close  to  the 
shore.  We  can  see  naval  "jolly  boats"  and 
pinnaces  sailing  back  and  forth.  On  one 
side  are  lying  the  H.M.S  Powerful  and 
another  boat,  both  of  which  in  their  day 
were  the  pride  of  the  Navy.  The  Powerful 
was  the  boat  which  made  such  a  name  for 
herself  in  the  Boer  War.    Now  both  of  these 

25 


Crumps 

vessels  are  training  ships  and  obsolete  so  far 
as  this  war  goes. 

All  our  haversacks  have  been  boiled  In 
coffee  to  stain  them   khaki. 

One  of  the  Navy  steam  launches  came  by 
and  we  asked  them  to  get  us  newspapers. 
They  came  back  with  a  bundle  and  we  nearly 
had  a  riot  trying  to  get  at  them. 

It  was  only  to-day  that  we  heard  of  the 
fall  of  Antwerp,  the  atrocities  of  Belgium, 
and  the  treachery  of  Maritz  in  Cape  Colony. 

We  shall  be  getting  off  in  a  few  hours  and 
this  may  be  the  last  I  shall  write  for  some 
time.  I  have  put  in  a  great  deal  of  time 
during  the  voyage  writing  and  have  done  so 
under  difficulties.  Sometimes  the  cabin  has 
been  torn  in  pieces,  and  often  arguments, 
carried  on  by  leather-lunged  opponents  of 
*'Kultur,"  have  made  this  work  hard. 

We  hear  that  some  paper  published  an 
account  of  the  sinking  of  twenty  of  the  ships. 
This  rumor  is  false,  and  it's  a  beastly  thing 
for  the  newspaper  to  do,  but  you  must  re- 
member to  discount  all  news  a  great  deal. 

26 


o 

O 

> 
w 

Q 
H 


Crumps 

Still  on  board  and  we  shall  probably  be 
here  for  a  few  days  more.  My,  it's  galling 
to  be  so  near  to  the  land  and  yet  to  be  cooped 
up  in  our  crowded  quarters.  Crowded 
launches  and  steamers  are  sailing  round  the 
liners.  All  day  long  cheering  crowds  come 
out  to  see  us.  Last  night  another  liner 
called  Florizel,  with  the  First  Regiment 
Newfoundland  troops,  tied  up  to  us.  They 
were  a  fine-looking  lot  of  men.  We  told  them 
we  had  no  tobacco;  they  threw  dozens  of  tins 
of  their  tobacco  and  cigarettes  over  to  us. 
We  fought  for  them.  I  got  the  remains  of 
one  tin  with  most  of  the  contents  spilt. 
Still,  as  many  of  us  have  n't  had  a  smoke  for 
three  days,  we  appreciated  it.  Several  cruis- 
ers have  come  in  to-day,  and  there  seem 
to  be  dozens  of  submarines  and  torpedo 
boats  cruising  around  all  day.  The  reason 
we  did  not  go  to  Southampton  is  that  five 
German  submarines  were  waiting  for  us. 

The  transports  are  unloading  at  the  rate  of 
five  or  six  ships  a  day.  It  will  probably  be  our 
turn  on_  Sunday.    The  fleet  looks  splendid  at 

27 


Crumps 

night  now  that  we  have  most  of  the  lights 
on.  All  night  the  steel  riveters  are  at  work  on 
three  battleships  that  are  being  built  close  by. 
Near  us  are  several  "wooden  walls."  One 
is  a  ship  of  Nelson's,  the  Queen  Adelaide. 
Every  boat,  tug,  lighter  and  motor  boat 
here  is  the  property  of  the  Admiralty. 

We  are  probably  going  to  Salisbury  Plain 
for  two  months.  We  are  the  first  Expedition- 
ary Force  to  land  in  England  from  the  do- 
minions or  colonies,  but  others  are  on  their 
way.  The  sailors  from  the  training  ships 
serenade  us  in  boats  with  bands  and  play 
"O  Canada,"  "The  Maple  Leaf  Forever," 
and  all  day  long  on  one  ship  or  the  other 
we  hear  "It's  a  Long  Way  to  Tipperary." 
Every  one  is  singing  it;  without  doubt  it  is 
the  song  of  the  war.  To-day  we  got  a  bundle 
of  papers.  We  read  them  right  through  to 
the  advertisements.  Cigarettes  and  matches 
are  at  a  premium  and  food  is  running  out  on 
board.  The  strain  of  staying  here  is  becom- 
ing too  great.     We're  all  disagreeable  and 

28 


Crumps 

insubordinate.     The  guard  room  is  already 
full  and  will  soon  need  enlarging. 

On  guard  to  prevent  the  men  of  the  two 
ships  (our  owti  and  the  Florizel  with  the 
Newfoundlanders)  coming  over  to  visit  each 
other.  At  ten  o'clock  at  night  I  got  the  tip 
that  a  bunch  of  men  were  going  to  make  a 
break  for  shore  and  I  was  asked  to  go.  I 
had  just  come  off  sentry  and  was  dressed 
for  shore.  We  all  met  up  forward,  hailed  a 
police  boat,  climbed  down  a  rope  ladder 
across  two  barges  unloading  shells  and  into 
the  police  launch.  When  I  got  in  I  found 
that  I  and  one  other  fellow  were  the  only 
privates;  all  the  rest  were  sergeants  and 
corporals,  thirteen  altogether,  unlucky  num- 
ber. The  police  sergeants  asked  me  if  we 
had  passes.  I  said,  "You  bet,"  and  we  sailed 
away  from  the  ship  right  under  everybody's 
nose.  We  landed  and  then  took  a  car  to 
Plymouth  and  went  on  the  Hoe,  which  has 
been  in  absolute  darkness  since  the  beginning 
of  the  war.  Girls  were  very  interested  in  us 
and  took  most  of  our  collar  badges  and  but- 

29 


Crumps 

tons  as  souvenirs.    One  man  asked  me  to 
give  him  a  cigarette  as  a  souvenir. 

We  met  an  English  captain  in  a  tobacco- 
nist's and  he  invited  us  up  to  the  barracks. 
Two  of  us  went.  I  was  one.  To  get  there 
we  had  to  go  on  a  street  car.  We  had  just 
sat  down  when  up  the  stairs  came  my 
Lieutenant  McCarthy.  When  he  saw  me  he 
said,  "How  the  hell  did  you  get  here?"  "Oh, 
just  swam  across."  "Well,  if  you  get  caught 
it'll  be  the  guard  room  for  you."  I  said, 
** Never  mind,  we'll  have  company."  He 
is  a  pretty  good  sport.  We  went  to  the 
barracks,  had  a  session  with  the  captain,  then 
went  to  the  quay,  picked  up  the  rest  of  the 
men,  and  sneaked  on  board.  I  got  to  bed 
at  three  and  had  to  get  up  this  morning  at 
six  o'clock  to  go  on  guard. 

Sunday,  very  tired.  On  guard  all  day, 
two  hours  on,  four  off.  It's  very  unfortunate 
having  a  Sunday  guard,  because  in  the  ordi- 
nary way  we  have  to  attend  church  parade 
in  the  morning  and  after  having  listened 

30 


Crumps 

to  a  sermon  and  sung  "Onward,  Christian 
Soldiers,"  or,  "Fight  the  good  fight,"  we  are 
free  for  the  day,  whereas  guards  stay  on 
twenty-four  hours. 

The  major  noticed  one  of  the  sergeants 
coming  on  board  this  morning  at  six  o'clock. 
The  idiot  missed  us  this  morning  and  of 
course  that  dished  us.  The  sergeants  got  in 
wrong.  As  I  am  only  a  private,  and  there- 
fore ignorant  and  simple  according  to  the 
military  code,  and,  being  with  non-commis- 
sioned officers  who  are  supposed  to  possess 
superior  intelligence,  I  got  away  with  it. 
The  sergeants  have  had  to  do  sentry  on  the 
same  ladder  we  went  down. 

Everybody  is  as  disagreeable  as  possible. 
We  are  lying  in  midstream  and  can  see  the 
town.  Can  you  imagine  anything  more 
galling  than  that? 

While  I  was  on  guard  the  Vicar  of  Plym- 
outh came  aboard  and  held  service.  He  said 
that  the  last  time  a  Vicar  of  Plymouth 
preached  to  warriors  was  just  before  Drake 
sailed  to  meet  the  Armada. 

31 


Crumps 

Thank  God!  moving  at  last.  We've 
moored  up  to  the  docks  just  opposite  two 
magnificent  dreadnaughts.  Naval  men  are 
handling  our  cargo,  our  kit  bags  are  packed 
and  we  are  ready  to  disembark. 

Near  our  ship's  stern  is  a  barge  full  of 
ventilators  and  spare  parts  of  ships  which  are 
taken  away  when  ships  are  cleared  for  action. 
Some  of  the  rifle  racks  were  marked  Corn- 
wall and  I  noticed  a  davit  post  with  the  name 
Highflyer,  the  boat  that  sank  the  Kaiser 
Wilhelm  after  she  had  been  preying  on  the 
shipping  off  South  Africa.  When  a  ship  Is 
cleared  for  action,  all  Inflammable  fittings, 
such  as  wooden  doors,  ladders,  racks,  extra 
boats,  and  davits,  etc.,  are  discarded.  If  the 
order  to  "clear  the  decks  for  action"  comes 
at  sea,  overboard  go  all  these  luxuries.  It  is 
calculated  that  the  cost  of  "clearing  decks" 
on  a  cruiser  Is  five  thousand  dollars. 

Some  of  our  stuff  was  unloaded  yesterday, 
and  when  the  ship  moved  a  guard  was  placed 
over  it.  When  the  corporal  went  down  the 
gangplank  with  the  relief,  Pat  and  I  walked 

32 


Crumps 

down  behind  as  if  we  were  part  of  the  same, 
right  by  the  officers.  We  had  a  devil  of 
a  job  to  get  through  the  dock  gates,  a 
suspicious  policeman  and  sentry  on  guard. 
We  told  the  sergeant  of  the  police  a  pitiful 
story,  saying  that  we  had  n't  had  anything  to 
eat  for  three  days,  and  finally  he  relented. 
"All  right,  my  lads,  only  don't  *  swing  the 
lead'  in  town."  We  got  into  Devonport  and 
went  to  the  biggest  hotel.  Before  they  had 
time  to  throw  us  out  we  ordered  breakfast 
of  real  food.  It  was  fine  after  the  ship's 
grub.  After  sitting  there  ten  minutes,  the 
general  commanding  the  district  came  in  and 
sat  behind  us.  He  stared.  Two  privates 
in  the  same  room  as  the  general !  1  But  all 
he  said  was,  "If  you  boys  can  fight  as  you 
eat,  you  '11  make  an  impression."  Then  we 
visited  some  other  places! 

We  went  back  to  the  docks  and  went  over 
the  super-dreadnaughts.  Tiger  and  Benbow, 
the  biggest  war  vessels  in  the  world.  The 
Tiger's  speed  on  her  trials  was  37.5  knots  an 
hour. 

3Z 


Crumps 

After  we  had  seen  enough,  we  went  back 
to  the  ship  and  tried  to  look  as  if  we  had  been 
working  with  one  of  the  fatigue  parties  on 
shore.    It  worked! 

We  marched  off  the  ship  midday  and  then 
I  had  to  go  on  guard  again  all  night.  That 
was  the  first  time  we  were  allowed  ashore  to 
see  the  town,  and  I  was  on  guard,  so  if  I 
had  n't  slipped  ashore  on  the  two  occasions 
mentioned,  I  should  not  have  seen  it  at  all. 

It  rained  all  night,  and  when  I  was  off 
guard  I  slept  on  the  top  of  one  of  our  armored 
trucks,  under  a  tarpaulin.  It's  wonderful 
how  we  can  sleep  now  anywhere,  and  we 
often  have  our  clothes  on  for  three  days  at  a 
time.  Many  a  time  I  sleep  with  all  my 
equipment  on.  Get  wet  and  dry  it  by  keep- 
ing it  on.  We  all  have  to  do  it.  The  idea 
of  pajamas  or  baths  as  necessities  seems 
funny.  At  one  time  I  would  sooner  go  with- 
out breakfast  than  miss  a  bath.  Now  I  make 
sure  of  the  breakfast. 

We  are  going  to  drive  our  cars  through 
34 


Crumps 

England  to  Salisbury  Plain.  We  started  this 
morning  and  drove  through  Devonport. 
Cheering  crowds  everywhere.  All  our  cars 
wear  the  streaming  pennants:  "Canada  With 
the  Empire,"  which  pleased  the  people  a 
great  deal. 

As  we  rode  through  the  streets  people 
showered  gifts  upon  us,  such  as  cakes,  choco- 
lates, newspapers  and  apples,  and  every- 
where made  lusty  demonstrations.  The 
people  of  Taunton,  as  soon  as  they  heard  that 
the  Canadians  were  coming,  turned  out  the 
barracks  and  we  were  met  by  all  the  officers, 
who  came  in  to  talk  to  us.  One  second  lieu- 
tenant, after  studying  me  for  some  time, 
said,  "Is  n't  your  name  Keene?"  "Yes,"  I 
replied,  "but  how  do  you  know?"  "I  went 
to  school  with  you  fifteen  years  ago."  His 
name  was  Carter;  he  was  in  the  Second  Dor- 
sets.  That  night  he  got  me  out  of  barracks 
for  a  couple  of  hours,  and  we  hashed  over 
the  schoolboy  reminiscences.  The  people  of 
Taunton  were  arranging  a  dance  for  us,  but 
nobody  was  allowed  to  attend.    The  major 

3S 


Crumps 

believes  In  putting  us  to  bed  early;  his  theory 
being  that  a  man  can't  drive  cars  well  after  a 
party,  and  he  could  n't  keep  the  drivers  in 
alone. 

Ladles  from  Taunton,  of  the  pleasing  Eng- 
lish type  with  beautiful  complexions,  handed 
round  all  sorts  of  rubbish,  jam  puffs,  and 
other  things  which  belong  to  the  time  before 
we  joined  the  army. 

Traveled  all  the  morning.  Everybody 
turned  out  to  see  us.  The  Brigadier-General 
wired  ahead,  and  hastily  prepared  placards, 
still  wet,  were  hanging  from  the  windows,  — 

God  Bless  the  Canadians 
Loyal  Sons 

of 
The  Empire 

The  gathering  of 
the  Lions'  whelps 

and  in  one  case  the  haste  was  so  great  that 

"God  Save  the  King"  was  hung  upside  down. 

Everybody  wants  my  badges  and  buttons, 

36 


Crumps 

and  some  men  in  the  unit  have  not  one 
left.  Hence  I  have  requisitioned  an  order 
for  a  hundred  to  meet  the  demand. 

All  over  the  countr}^  you  see  "Kitchener's 
Army"  drilling.  In  one  case  we  passed  about 
a  hundred  of  them.  When  they  saw  us  they 
broke  ranks  and  shook  us  by  the  hands.  The 
people  of  England  are  much  impressed  with 
our  speed  in  coming  over.  Old  men  and 
women  shouted,  "God  bless  you,  Canadians!" 
while  tears  trickled  dowTi  their  cheeks./^ 

I  read  this  notice  in  one  little  shop,  — 

At  noon  every  day  the  church  bell  will  ring  a 
few  chimes  and  everybody  is  asked  to  stop  what- 
ever he  is  doing  and  offer  this  prayer,  "Oh,  Lord, 
help  our  soldiers  and  sailors  to  defeat  our  enemies, 
and  let  us  have  Peace." 

(Signed)  The  Vicar. 

Recruiting  notices  ten  feet  by  six  feet  with 
the  sentence  "Your  King  and  Country  Need 
You"  are  to  be  seen  everywhere  in  shops,  on 
bams,  trees,  and  even  church  doors. 

Motorists  and  cyclists  are  warned  to  pull 
up  whenever  requested  or  the  results  may  be 

37 


Crumps 

serious.    Most  of  the  motors  have  O.H.M.S. 
plates  above  the  number  plate. 

We  billeted  in  a  village  school;  all  slept  in 
our  blankets  on  the  floor.  Left  the  school 
and  cleaned  up  before  the  kids  came  for  their 
lessons  next  day. 

Salisbury  Plain.  Arrived  to-day.  This 
part  is  called  Bustard  and  takes  its  name  from 
the  small  Bustard  Inn,  Headquarters  of  Gen- 
eral Alderson,  General  Officer  Command- 
ing. Troops  are  here  in  thousands  and  we  are 
no  novelty.  The  roads  are  torn  up.  Mud 
is  two  feet  deep  in  places.  All  through  the 
day  and  night  motor  lorries,  artillery  and 
cavalry  are  traveling  over  the  ground.  Aero- 
planes are  circling  overhead  and  heavy  artil- 
lery are  firing.  We  see  the  shells  bursting 
on  the  ranges  every  day. 

Always  raining.  Everything  is  wet,  and 
I  am  sleeping  in  a  rotten  tent  which  leaks. 
Still,  we  are  all  so  fit  that  what  would  kill  an 
ordinary  man  does  n't  worry  us  much. 

We  all  get  three  days'  leave  and  are  trying 
38 


Crumps 

by  every  means  possible  to  wangle  another 
day  or  two.  Many  men  have  to  see  dentists, 
and  lots  of  men  have  grandparents  in  Scot- 
land who  display  signs  of  dying  suddenly. 
If  the  excuse  is  good  enough,  we  get  four 
days  and  sometimes  five.  I  have  a  sweet- 
heart in  Scotland,  but  if  that  is  played  out 
I  have  to  work  something  else. 

Wonderful  sight  from  where  I  am  now. 
Miles  of  tents,  motors  and  horse  lines  on  this 
desolate  moorland.  No  houses;  only  camps 
and  a  few  trees  which  have  been  planted  as 
wind  screens.  The  soil  is  very  poor,  too  poor 
for  farming.  It  is  government  property  and 
it  is  only  used  for  troops.  We  are  ten  miles 
from  a  railroad.  We  are  so  isolated  that  we 
might  be  in  Africa,  except  that  it's  so  cold.  ' 

The  papers  are  starting  an  agitation  to 
get  the  Canadians  to  march  through  Lon- 
don, and  are  asking  why  they  should  be 
smuggled  in  and  then  shut  up  on  Salisbury 
Plain.  They  want  to  see  us,  and  we  want 
TO  SEE  London!! 

39 


Crumps 

Our  ambulance  car  has  been  used  every 
day  since  we  came  here,  taknig  wounded 
from  one  hospital  to  another.  The  rest  of 
our  cars  have  been  used  to  carry  German 
prisoners. 

One  of  the  spies  caught  on  the  ships  Is 
said  to  have  been  shot.  Several  were  ar- 
rested; two  were  caught  in  Devonport  while 
we  were  there,  one  in  a  Canadian  officer's 
uniform. 

Am  spending  seventy-two  hours'  leave  in 
London.  Got  leave  through  this  telegram 
which  is  from  "the  girl  I'm  engaged  to": 

Disappointed.  Met  train.  Please  do  come. 
Leaving  for  Belgium  soon.     Love. 

Edythe.    , 

She  is  a  Red  Cross  nurse.  This  is  a  new 
one  and  it  worked.    McCarthy  sent  it  to  me. 

London  is  very  dismal.  No  electric  signs, 
and  the  tops  of  all  the  street  lamps  are  painted 
black  so  that  the  lights  don't  show  from 
above.     However,  we  managed  to  have  a 

40 


Crumps 

good  time,  In  spite  of  It  all.  The  Germans 
say  that  the  Canadians  are  being  held  In 
England  to  repel  the  Invasion. 

The  facilities  for  bathing  are  not  very 
extensive.  I  rode  Into  Salisbury,  a  distance 
of  seventeen  miles,  yesterday,  on  top  of  some 
packing-cases  in  a  covered  transport  wagon, 
for  a  bath,  the  first  since  I  was  last  on  leave. 
We  get  a  Turkish  bath  In  town  for  thirty 
cents.  After  that  we  had  a  large  juicy  steak 
and  then  started  our  seventeen-mile  trip  back 
through  the  pouring  rain.  Every  other  mile 
we  got  down  and  helped  the  driver  swear 
and  push  the  car  out  of  the  mud,  vast  quan- 
tities of  which  abound  on  the  Salisbury 
roads,  believe  me  ! ! 

It  Is  Sunday  afternoon.  Most  of  the  men 
In  camp  are  asleep  or  reading.  Outside  It 
Is  raining.  It  seems  to  be  always  raining, 
and  occasionally  we  have  such  a  thick  fog 
that  even  a  trip  to  get  water  is  exciting 
before  you  can  get  back  to  your  own  lines. 

41 


Crumps 

Owing  to  our  camp  having  become  a  swamp 
we  have  had  to  move  our  quarters  to  drier 
ground.  Moving  the  tents  is  not  a  big  job, 
but  rebuilding  the  cook-house  is!  I  figure 
that  when  I  leave  the  army  I  shall  have  a 
few  more  professions  to  choose  from.  For 
example,  I'm  a  pretty  hefty  trench  digger; 
then  as  a  scavenger  I  am  pretty  good  at 
picking  up  tin  cans  and  pieces  of  paper;  also 
I'm  an  expert  in  building  things  such  as 
shelters  from  any  old  pieces  of  timber  that 
we  can  steal;  then  as  a  cook  I  can  now  make 
that  wonderful  tea  that  I  wrote  you  about, 
besides  many  other  things  which  we  did  n't 
realize  that  we  had  to  do  when  we  enlisted. 
I  To-day  the  paper  says  "  Fair  and  Warmer." 
We  could  do  with  some  of  that.  Years  ago, 
before  I  joined  the  army  and  lost  my  iden- 
tity, I  rather  liked  occasionally  getting  wet 
in  the  refreshing  rain;  but  now  the  trouble 
is  that  we  are  always  wet  and  have  nowhere 
to  dry  our  things,  except  by  sleeping  on 
them. 

Our  major  has  an  original  scheme  of  train- 
42 


Crumps 

ing  men  in  the  ranks  to  qualify  for  commis- 
sions, sort  of  having  half  a  dozen  embryo 
officers  ready.  I  have  been  picked  as  one  and 
have  to  study  in  all  my  spare  time.  It  means 
a  great  deal  more  work,  but  it's  very  inter- 
esting and  the  sort  of  thing  I  would  like  to 
do.    We  start  to-day.  ^ 

We  began  our  instruction  on  the  machine 
gun  to  the  officers  and  the  tmen  whoi  are 
up  here  for  a  special  course;  I  have  a  boozy 
lieutenant,  who  does  n't  care  a  hang,  and  a 
bright  non-com.  Some  of  the  officers  we 
brought  over  make  good  mascots.; 

It  was  fine  to-day.  We  were  even  able  to 
open  up  the  tent  flap  to  dry  the  place  a  bit. 
To-day  the  major  congratulated  me  on  the 
Christmas  card  I  designed  for  the  unit. 
'  Our  classes  of  instruction  to  the  "alien" 
officers  finish  to-morrow.  Both  the  men  I 
was  instructing  passed. 

The  adjutant  is  very  anxious  to  put  us 
through  our  officers'  training  course  quickly. 

43 


Crumps 

We  are  now  recognized  as  the  specialist  corps 
in  the  machine-gun  work  with  the  Canadian 
Division,  and  he  is  anxious  that  we  shall  be 
ready  to  take  commissions  when  casualties 
occur.  Every  battalion  of  infantry  has  a 
machine-gun  section  attached,  and  we  have 
the  job  of  training  the  officers  and  sergeants 
of  these  sections. 

1  Owing  to  the  bombardment  of  the  east 
coast,  several  of  our  battalions  are  under 
orders  to  move  at  a  moment's  notice.  It  is 
thought  that  the  bombardment  was  simply 
a  ruse  to  draw  the  British  fleet  away  from 
around  Heligoland.   . 

The  newspaper  boys  In  Salisbury,  when 
you  refuse  to  buy  an  "Hextra,"  shout 
^'Montreal  Star"  and  "Calgary  Eyeopener," 
and  all  the  shopgirls  and  barmaids  in  Salis- 
bury say,  "Some  kid,"  "Believe  muh,"  "Oh, 
Boy!" 

I  had  been  granted  Christmas  leave  at  the 
last  minute,  and  as  it  was  awkward  to  tele- 

44 


Crumps 

graph  to  Northwich,  I  arrived  after  a  long 
journey,  lasting  sixteen  hours,  ten  minutes 
ahead  of  the  letter  I'd  sent  saying  I  was 
coming.  My  arrival  soon  spread  over  the 
town.  A  Canadian  —  this  was  a  rather 
unique  thing  for  Northwich,  a  little  Cheshire 
town.  Out  of  a  population  of  about  eighteen 
thousand,  two  thousand  men  have  joined  the 
colors.  The  men  in  uniform  from  the  works 
are  all  receiving  half  pay.  The  other  men 
who  are  staying  are  working  twelve  hours  a 
day  and  give  up  part  of  their  pay  so  that  the 
jobs  of  the  soldiers  will  be  open  when  they 
come  back.  Thirty-five  Belgian  refugees 
are  being  kept  here.  Money  to  keep  them 
for  twelve  months  has  been  subscribed.  One 
huge  house  has  been  taken  over  as  a  hospital 
with  twenty-three  nurses,  all  volunteers  from 
Northwich.  Everybody  has  done  or  is  doing 
something  in  the  great  struggle.  The  young 
ladies  in  this  neighborhood  have  no  use  for  a 
man  who  is  not  in  khaki,  and  with  customary 
north  of  England  frankness  tell  them  so. 
I  expect  that  you  know  that  the  Govern- 
45 


Crumps  ' 

ment  has  sent  around  forms  to  every  house 
asking  the  men  who  are  going  to  volunteer 
to  sign,  and  men  long  past  the  military  age 
have  signed  the  papers,  "too  old  for  the  war 
service,  but  willing  to  serve  either  at  home  or 
abroad  voluntary  for  the  period  of  the  war." 
Others  have  offered  to  do  work  to  allow 
young  men  to  go,  to  keep  their  jobs  for  them. 
This  shows  the  spirit  that  permeates  Eng- 
land. There  is  only  one  end  and  that  must 
be  the  crushing  of  the  Germans.  I  don't 
believe  people  have  any  idea  of  the  number 
of  men  who  are  at  present  under  arms, 
and  stili  the  posters  everywhere  say  that  we 
must  have  more  men. 

I  wonder  if  you  know  that  the  Germans 
are  shooting  British  prisoners  who  are  found 
with  what  they  consider  insulting  post-cards 
of  the  Kaiser,  and  even  references  to  His  All 
Highest  in  letters  are  dangerous.  As  we  are 
nearing  the  time  when  we  shall  go  across  I 
thought  I  would  mention  it. 

We  expect  to  leave  England  somewhere 
around  January  1 5th.   We  have  been  living  in 

46 


Crumps 

the  mud  so  long  that  we  are  getting  quite 
web-footed. 

This  is  a  war  Christmas.  People  are  too 
excited  and  anxious  to  celebrate  it.  I  wonder 
what  sort  of  a  Christmas  the  next  one  will  be! 
What  a  terrible  Christmas  the  Germans  must 
have  had  in  Germany.  They  admit  over  one 
million  casualties.  Fancy  a  million  in  less 
than  five  months.  During  the  Napoleonic 
wars,  which  extended  over  twenty  years,  six 
million  died,  and  yet  one  side  in  this  war 
already  admits  ,one  million. 

The  Canadian  ordnance  stores  have  been 
given  instructions  that  all  equipments  down 
to  the  last  button  must  be  ready  by  the  15th 
of  January.  That  date  seems  to  be  the 
favorite  one.  I  believe  it  is  the  commence- 
ment of  big  things;  a  move  will  then  be  made 
to  embark  large  numbers  of  troops  across  to 
France. 

All  our  telegraphic  addresses  were  taken 
when  we  came  away  on  leave  in  case  it  were 
decided  to  send  units  over  before  our  term 
of  leave  expired. 

47 


Crumps 

'  A  German  aviator  flew  over  Dover  yes- 
terday and  made  a  fierce  and  terrible  bomb 
attack  on  a  cabbage  patch.  Terrible  casualty 
in  cabbages.  Berlin  must  have  designs  on  a 
bumper  crop  of  sauerkraut. 

Back  in  camp.  It  was  hard  to  come  down 
to  it.  Our  blankets  and  clothes  left  in  the 
tent  were  mildewed,  clammy,  and  partly 
submerged.  Our  feet  are  wet  and  we  are 
again  soldiers,  dirty  and  cold. 

Traveled  down  in  the  train  with  thirty-six 
men  of  the  Canadian  contingent  who  had 
formed  an  escort  for  fifty-six  undesirables 
who  have  been  shipped  back  to  Canada. 
It  seems  strange  when  men  are  needed  so 
badly  to  ship  them  back  because  they  are  a 
bit  unruly  or  get  drunk  too  often.  They  will 
all  come  back  with  future  contingents.  Six 
of  them  made  a  dash  for  it  at  Liverpool. 
Three  of  them  got  away  altogether. 

It  snowed  yesterday.  Last  night  the  camp 
looked  beautiful;  the  tents  lit  up  through  the 
snow  in  the  moonlight  made  a  pretty  picture, 

48 


Crumps 

a  suitable  subject  for  a  magazine  cover,  but 
mighty  uncomfortable  to  camp  in. 

In  a  gale  last  night  many  tents  were  blown 
down.  We  spent  all  day  putting  them  up 
again.  The  cook  house,  a  substantial  frame 
building,  has  also  blown  down  again. 

When  I  got  back  I  found  a  Christmas 
hamper,  a  bunch  of  holly  and  a  small  box  of 
maple  sugar  and  packet  of  cigarettes  from 
the  Duchess  of  Connaught  with  her  Christ- 
mas card.  All  parcels  for  the  troops  came 
in  duty  free.  Our  postal  system  is  very 
efficient.  We  get  our  letters  as  regularly  as 
we  would  In  a  town. 

People  send  us  so  many  cigarettes  that 
we  sometimes  have  too  many.  I  wish  we 
could  get  more  tobacco  and  fewer  cigarettes. 
If  you  remember  during  the  Boer  War  the 
authorities  tried  to  break  the  "Tommy"  of 
his  "fags"  by  giving  him  more  tobacco. 
Now  they  really  seem  to  encourage  cigarette 
smoking,  although  it  really  does  n't  matter; 
the  same  things  which  are  harmful  in  towns 

49 


Crumps 

don't  have  the  same  bad  effects  when  we 
are  living  in  the  open. 

All  leave  is  up  by  the  loth  of  January  for 
everybody,  officers  and  men. 

The  Princess  Patricia  Canadian  Light 
Infantry  have  gone  to  the  front  to  the  envy 
of  everybody.  It  Is  a  splendid  battalion 
with  fine  officers.  They  have  been  lying 
next  to  our  lines  and  we  have  made  many 
friends  with  the  "Pats." 

Cerebro-spinal  meningitis  has  broken  out, 
and  in  spite  of  all  efforts  to  check  it,  seems 
to  be  gaining  ground.  Several  officers  have 
died  with  it,  and  I  believe  that  four  battalions 
are  quarantined.  We  have  to  use  chloride  of 
lime  on  the  tent  floors  and  around  the  lines. 
My  friend  Pat  calls  it  "Spike  McGuiness." 
The  worst  of  a  disease  like  this  Is  that  a 
patient  never  recovers.  Even  a  cure  means 
partial  paralysis  for  life.  I  believe  that 
Salisbury  Plain  Is  known  for  It,  and  I  hear 
that  all  the  ground  that  troops  are  now 
occupying  is  to  be  ploughed  up  when  we 
leave.    As  far  as  that  goes  we  have  ploughed 

50 


Crumps 

It  up  a  bit  already,  but  a  systematic  plough- 
ing will  make  it  more  regular.  The  subsoil 
is  only  four  inches,  then  you  come  to  chalky 
clay.  The  tent-pegs  when  they  are  taken 
from  the  ground  are  covered  with  chalk. 

I  think  that  the  Canadian  Contingent  has 
had  a  pretty  raw  deal.  We're  not  even  in- 
cluded in  the  six  army  divisions  which  are 
going  to  France  by  the  end  of  March.  Wish 
I  had  joined  the  "Princess  Pats,"  who  are 
already  there.    We  want  to  fight. 

We're  having  a  beastly  time  as  compared 
with  the  Belgian  refugees  and  the  German 
prisoners  in  England.  We're  [beginning  to 
wonder  if  we  are  ever  going  to  the  front. 
There  is  now  some  talk  of  billeting  us  in 
Bristol.  We've  been  under  arms  nearly 
five  months  and  should  be  good  fighting 
material  by  now.  With  a  similar  number  of 
men  the  Germans  would  have  done  some- 
thing by  this  time.  ^ 

All  the  last  week  the  selected  few  of  us  have 
been  working  separately  on  a  course  of  work 

51 


Crumps 

to  qualify  us  for  commissionvS.  We  have  had 
to  study  hard  every  spare  minute  when  not 
drilling  each  other. 

Several  dogs  have  attached  themselves  to 
us;  sometimes  they  find  themselves  on  a 
piece  of  string,  the  other  end  being  in  a  man's 
hand.  One  of  these,  a  big  bull  terrier,  sleeps 
in  the  canteen.  The  beer  is  quite  safe  with 
him  there,  but  two  nights  ago  the  canteen 
tent,  after  a  great  struggle,  tore  itself  off  the 
tent-poles  and  went  fifteen  feet  up  in  the  air 
like  a  balloon,  then  collapsed.  The  dog,  I 
regret  to  say,  did  not  stay  at  his  post,  so  a 
quantity  of  beer  will  have  to  be  marked  down 
as  lost.  This  same  bull  has  a  pal,  a  white  bull 
terrier,  who  came  out  with  the  officers'  class 
the  other  morning.  We  had  not  been  drilling 
more  than  fifteen  minutes  when  he  came  back 
with  a  large  rabbit.  We  stewed  it  at  night. 
It  certainly  was  good. 

One  of  the  mechanics  has  forged  an  Iron 
Cross  which  has  been  presented  to  the  dog  in 
recognition  of  his  services. 

I  doubt  if  I  shall  ever  be  able  to  sit  up  to  a 
52 


Crumps 

table  again  regularly.  I  would  much  sooner 
sleep  on  the  floor,  and  I  have  found,  when  on 
leave,  that  I  preferred  sitting  on  a  hearth- 
rug to  a  chair.  Even  while  writing  this  I  am 
lying  on  my  blankets.  My  pipe  is  burnt 
down  on  one  side  from  lighting  it  from  my 
candle. 

To-day  being  Sunday  and  as  there  were 
only  two  of  us  left  in  the  tent,  the  others 
being  on  leave,  we  gave  it  a  thorough  spring 
cleaning.  It  needed  it!  By  some  oversight 
the  sun  came  out  to-day,  so  that  helped. 
We  also  washed  up  all  our  canteens  and 
pannikins  with  disinfectant. 

The  infantry  are  bayonet-fighting  and 
practicing  charges  every  day.  If  you  want 
a  thrill,  see  them  coming  over  the  top  at  you 
with  a  yell;  the  bayonets  catch  the  light  and 
flash  in  a  decidedly  menacing  fashion.  They 
practice  on  dummies,  and  are  so  enthusiastic 
that  they  need  new  dummies  almost  every 
lesson. 

Every  man,  on  becoming  a  soldier,  becomes 
53 


Crumps 

a  man  with  a  number  and  an  identification 
disk.  My  number  is  45555  and  my  "cold 
meat  ticket,"  a  tag  made  of  red  fiber,  is 
hanging  round  my  neck  on  a  piece  of  string. 

We're  packing  up  and  expect  to  go  away 
next  week.  Of  course,  it  may  be  another 
bluff,  but  somehow  I  think  we  really  are  going 
now,  as  we  have  been  fitted  out  with  a  "field 
service-dressing,"  a  packet  containing  two 
bandages  and  safety  pins,  which  we  have  to 
sew  into  the  right-hand  bottom  corner  of  our 
tunics.  We  have  also  been  given  our  active 
service  pay  book,  a  little  account  book  in 
which  we  have  our  pay  entered.  We  don't 
get  paid  much  in  the  field.  We  carry  this 
book  instead. 

It  seems  always  cold  and  wet.  We  are 
very  hardened.  We  look  tough  and  feel  that 
way.  I  have  n't  had  a  bath  for  a  month. 
Since  I  have  been  soldiering  I  have  done 
every  dirty  job  that  there  is  in  the  army,  and 
there  are  many.  Often  when  a  job  seemed 
to  be  too  dirty  and  too  heavy  for  anybody 

54 


Crumps 

else,   they   l(X)ked   around    for   Keene   and 
Pat. 

"On  guard."  Writing  this  in  the  guard 
tent,  when  we  are  not  actually  on  sentry. 
We  keep  all  our  equipment  on,  as  we  are 
liable  to  be  called  out  at  any  minute.  We 
sleep  with  our  belts  and  revolvers  in  place. 

A  quarter  guard  is  three  men  and  a  non- 
com.  The  men  do  two  hours  on  and  four  off. 
When  it  comes  to  a  man's  turn  he  has  to  be 
on  his  beat  no  matter  what  the  weather  is 
like  during  the  day  or  night.  The  cold  is 
pretty  bad  and  occasionally  it  snows.  Some 
units  have  sentry  boxes,  but  we  have  n't. 
We  use  a  bell  tent.  I  was  called  this  morning 
at  five  o'clock  to  do  my  sentry  from  five  to 
seven.  The  small  oil  stove  which  serves  to 
heat  the  guard  tents  had  evidently  been 
smoking  for  an  hour,  and  over  everything 
was  a  thick  film  of  lamp-black.  Everybody 
thought  it  a  great  joke  until  they  looked  at 
themselves  in  the  mirror  and  caught  sight  of 
their  own  equipment.     We  must  come  off 

55 


Crumps 

guard  as  clean  as  we  go  on.  I  got  out 
quickly  and  left  them  swearing  and  clean- 
ing up. 

From  five  to  seven  is  the  most  interesting 
relief.  I  had  first  to  wake  the  cooks  at  five 
o'clock  and  then  I  watched  the  gradual 
waking  up  of  the  camp.  At  six  o'clock  I 
had  to  wake  the  orderly  sergeants  and  then 
far  away  in  the  distance  the  first  bugle 
sounded  reveille,  then  it  was  taken  up  all 
around  and  gradually  the  camps  all  over  the 
Plains  woke  up.  Men  came  out  of  the  tents, 
the  calls  for  the  "fall  in"  sounded,  and  the 
rolls  were  called  and  the  usual  business  of 
the  day  commenced.  The  change  from  the 
deadness  of  the  night  with  its  absolute  still- 
ness all  takes  place  in  a  very  short  time.  To 
a  person  with  any  imagination  it  seems  rather 
wonderful.  You  must  remember  that  we 
can  see  for  miles,  and  in  every  direction  there 
are  hundreds  of  tents.  Each  battalion  is 
separate,  and  they  have  great  spaces  between 
them;  still  wherever  you  look  you  can  see 
tents. 

56 


Crumps 

I  wonder  If  I  told  you  that  aeroplanes  are 
all  the  time  flying  over  our  camp.  With 
characteristic  British  frankness  they  always 
have  two  huge  Union  Jacks  painted  on  the 
undersides  of  the  wings.  We  have  become 
so  used  to  them  that  we  scarcely  trouble  to 
look  up  unless  they  are  doing  stunts. 

The  frost  makes  a  fine  grip  for  the  cars; 
when  the  ground  freezes  over  we  can  take 
the  cars  anywhere,  but  unfortunately  it 
thaws  again  too  quickly.  As  we  are  a  motor 
battery  we  are  of  course  a  mile  from  the  road, 
and  sometimes  it  takes  an  hour  and  a  half  to 
get  on  to  it. 

It  is  a  howling  night,  wind  and  rain  galore. 
I'm  wondering  how  long  the  tent  will  last. 
I  have  been  out  three  times  already  to  look 
at  the  tent  pegs.  How  often  it  has  been  so 
since  we  first  came  on  to  these  plains.  If 
you  are  living  in  tents  you  notice  the  changes 
in  weather  more  than  under  ordinary  circum- 
stances,  and   every   rain-storm   has   meant 

57 


Crumps 

wet  feet  for  us.  But  now  we  have  been  given 
new  black  boots,  magnificent  things,  huge, 
heavy  "ammunition  boots,"  and  the  wonder- 
ful thing  is  they  don't  let  water  in.  They  are 
very  big  and  look  like  punts,  but  it's  dry 
feet  now.  I  can  tell  you  I  am  as  pleased  with 
them  as  if  some  one  had  given  me  a  present 
of  cold  cash.  At  first  they  felt  something  like 
the  Dutch  sabots.  They  seemed  absolutely 
unbendable  and  so  we  soaked  them  with 
castor-oil.  Once  they  become  moulded  to 
the  feet  they  are  fine.  Of  course  they  are 
not  pretty,  but  they  keep  the  wet  out. 

We  have  had  new  tunics  issued  to  us  of 
the  regular  English  pattern,  much  more  com- 
fortable than  our  other  original  ones,  and 
then  instead  of  the  hard  cap  we  now  have 
a  soft  one,  something  like  a  big  golf  cap  with 
the  flap  on  to  pull  down  over  the  ears.  These 
are  much  more  comfortable.  They  have  one 
great  advantage  over  the  old  kind  —  we  can 
sleep  in  them.  We  can  now  lie  down  in  our 
complete  outfits  even  to  our  hats.  Once  I 
considered   it   a   hardship   to   sleep   in   my 

58 


Crumps 

clothes.    Now  to  go  to  bed  we  don't  undress; 
we  put  on  clothes. 

I  managed  to  get  a  pass  to  Salisbury  on 
Saturday  and  went  to  the  local  vaudeville 
show.  In  the  row  in  front  of  me  were  several 
young  officers  of  the  British  Army,  and  it  was 
striking  what  a  clean-cut  lot  they  were. 
England  is  certainly  giving  of  her  best. 
They  were  not  very  much  different  from  any 
others,  but  at  the  same  time  they  are  the  type 
of  Englishmen  who  have  done  things  in  the 
past  and  will  do  things  again.  They  are  all 
Kitchener's  Army.  Thousands  of  men  who 
have  never  been  in  the  army  before  threw 
up  everything  to  go  in  the  ranks.  You  see 
side  by  side  professors,  laborers,  lawyers, 
doctors,  stevedores,  carters,  all  classes,  rich 
and  poor,  a  great  democratic  army,  drilling 
to  fight  so  that  this  may  be  a  decent  world 
to  live  in. 

At  present  It  Is  almost  impossible  to  use 
each  man  in  his  own  profession  as  they  do  in 
Germany,  but  sometimes  the  non-commis- 
sioned officers  work  it  out  in  this  way. 

59 


Crumps 

Sergeant  to  squad  of  recruits:  — 
"Henybody    'ere    know    anythink    abart 
cars?" 

"Yes;  I  do.    I  own  a  Rolls  Royce." 
"Olright;  fall  out  and  clean  the  major's 
motor  bike." 

One  patriotic  mother  who  had  a  son  who 
was  a  butcher  did  her  best  to  get  him  to  join 
the  Royal  Army  Medical  Corps,  because  he 
was  proficient  at  cutting  up  meat  and  would 
feel  quite  at  home  assisting  at  amputations.  ] 

Now  that  we  are  approaching  the  time  for 
our  departure  to  France  we  are  hearing  that 
favorite  farewell  to  all  men  going  to  the  front, 
*'  Good-bye,  I  '11  look  every  day  for  your  name 
in  the  casualty  list." 

The  "Princess  Pats"  have  already  been  in 
action.  They  had  a  hard  fight  and  many  of 
them  have  been  put  out  of  business.  We 
envied  them  when  they  went  away  and  still 
do,  although  it  only  seems  yesterday  that  we 
were  lying  together  here  and  now  a  number  of 
them  are  lying  "somewhere  in  France." 

60 


Crumps 

The  jam-making  firm  of  Tickler  was 
awarded  a  huge  contract  for  the  supply  of 
"Tommy's"  daily  four  ounces  of  jam;  either 
plum  and  apple  were  the  cheapest  combina- 
tion or  else  the  crop  of  these  two  fruits  must 
have  been  enormous,  because  every  single 
tin  of  jam  that  went  to  the  training  camps, 
France,  Dardanelles,  or  Mesopotamia,  was 
of  this  mixture. 

We  became  so  tired  of  it  that  we  used  the 
unopened  tins  to  make  borders  of  flower-beds, 
or  we  used  them  to  make  stepping-stones 
across  puddles.  Eventually  the  world's 
supply  of  plums  and  apples  having  been  used 
up,  the  manufacturers  were  forced  to  use 
strawberries. 

In  the  army  all  food  is  handled  by  the 
Army  Service  Corps,  and  as  soon  as  they 
found  real  jam  coming  through  they  took 
it  for  their  own  and  still  forwarded  on  to  us 
their  reserve  "plum  and  apple."  The  news 
got  around  amongst  the  fighting  units: 
result  —  the  Army  Service  Corps  is  now 
known  as  the  "Strawberry  Jam  Pinchers." 

6i 


Crumps 

Reviewed  by  King  George  V,  and  it  was 
indeed  a  very  impressive  sight.  Although 
there  were  only  twenty  thousand  troops, 
they  seemed  endless.  During  the  time  that 
the  King  was  on  the  parade  ground  in  com- 
pany with  Lord  Kitchener  two  aeroplanes 
kept  guard  in  the  sky.  Our  K.  of  K.  is  a  big, 
fine  man  who  looks  the  part.  An  inspection 
by  the  King  is  always  a  sure  sign  of  a  unit's 
impending  departure.  He  traveled  down  on 
the  new  railway  which  had  just  been  built 
by  the  defaulters  of  the  Canadian  Contin- 
gent. 

At  the  last  minute  I  managed  to  get  week- 
end leave  and  went  to  London.  No  Cana- 
dians there!  I  caught  sight  of  a  military 
picket/  sergeant  and  twelve  men,  looking  for 
stray  ones,  though.  AnotherJpicket  held  me 
up  and  made  me  button  my  greatcoat.  I 
did!  It  is  n't  clever  to  argue  with  pickets  at 
anyrtime ! 

The  train  was  three  hours  late.  Troops' 
trains  were  occupying  the  lines.  From  Bul- 
ford  we  walked  home  in  a  hail-storm.    Got  in 

62 


Crumps 

about  five  o'clock  just  as  the  reveille  was 
blowing  in  the  other  lines.  They  were  just 
leaving  for  the  front,  and  had  made  great 
fires  where  they  were  burning  up  rubbish 
and  stuff  they  could  n't  take  with  them. 
Tons  of  it!  Chairs,  mattresses,  and  tables. 
When  we  move,  everything  except  equipment 
has  to  be  discarded.  We  can't  do  anything 
with  extras.  We  have  to  cut  our  own  stuff 
down  to  the  very  smallest  dimensions.  I 
walked  through  the  lines  afterward  of  other 
battalions  who  had  left,  and  I  saw  fold-up 
bedsteads,  uniforms,  equipment,  books,  buck- 
ets, washing-bowls,  cartridges  and  stoves 
of  every  conceivable  kind  and  shape;  hun- 
dreds, from  the  single  "Beatrice"  to  the 
big  tiled  heaters.  Some  tents  were  half 
full  of  blankets  thrown  in,  others  with 
harness.  All  the  government  stuff  is  col- 
lected, but  private  stuff  is  burnt. 

In  the  army  you  soon  realize  that  you  have 
to  make  yourself  comfortable  your  own  way. 
I  don't  hesitate  to  take  anything.  If  I  have 
on  a  pair  of  puttees  which  are  a  bit  worn  and 

63 


Crumps 

I  find  a  new  pair,  —  well,  I  just  calmly  yet 
cautiously  annex  them  and  discard  the  old 
ones.  We  found  a  barrel  of  beer  had  been 
left  by  one  of  the  other  units,  so  we  carefully 
carried  the  prize  to  our  lines  and  then  tapped 
it.  Zowie!  It  was  a  beer  barrel  all  right, 
only  it  was  filled  with  linseed  oil. 

Thank  the  Lord ! !  Under  a  roof,  sitting  on 
a  real  chair;  tablecloth,  plates;  and  Pm  dry. 
We  have  come  to  Wilton  (of  carpet  fame) 
and  I'm  in  a  billet.  I  have  a  real  bed  to 
sleep  In.  Last  night  I  lay  on  the  floor  of  a 
mildewed  tent;  could  n't  sleep  on  account  of 
the  cold.  To-night  I  sleep  between  sheets, 
and  the  wonderful  thing  is  that  I'm  not  on 
leave. 

We  drove  our  cars  down  here,  each  of  us 
hoping  that  we  would  never  again  see  Bus- 
tard Camp,  Salisbury  Plain,  as  long  as  we 
lived;  it  had  been  our  home  for  five  months. 
Yesterday  we  felt  like  mutiny;  to-day  every 
one  is  smiling.  As  soon  as  we  were  "told  off" 
Pat  and  I  went  to  our  billet,  a  nice  clean  little 

64 


Crumps 

house  close  to  the  center  of  the  town.  The 
owner  is  a  baker.  I  felt  kind  of  uncomfortable 
with  my  boots  and  clothes  plastered  up  with 
mud,  but  the  good  lady  said,  "Don't  'e  mind, 
come  in,  bless  you;  I  Ve  'ad  soldiers  afore. 
The  last  one  'e  said  as  'ow  he  could  n't  sleep 
it  were  so  quiet  'ere." 

I  had  a  wash  (this  is  Friday  night),  the 
first  since  Wednesday  morning.  The  idea 
of  having  as  much  water  as  you  want,  with- 
out having  to  go  a  half  mile  over  a  swamp, 
pleased  me  so  much  that  I  used  about  six 
basinsful  in  the  scullery. 

When  the  lady  of  the  house  asked  us  what 
we  would  like  to  eat,  we  both  fainted.  I'm 
afraid  we're  going  to  get  spoiled  here. 
Could  n't  sleep  at  first.  Cold  sheets  and 
having  all  my  clothes  off  —  too  great  a 
strain!  Had  breakfast  and  then  drove  our 
cars  to  the  canal,  where  we  scrubbed  and 
washed  them  down  inside  and  out. 

This  afternoon  I've  been  into  every  shop 
I  could  find,  chiefly  to  talk  to  people  who  are 
not  soldiers.    Even  went  into  the  church  to 


Crumps 

look  around  and  listened  to  the  parrotHke 
description  of  the  place  by  the  sexton. 

Everybody  is  happy,  and  although  it  has 
rained  ever  since  we  have  been  here,  we 
have  n't  noticed  it  yet.  I  may  say  there 
are  four  or  five  kids,  and  the  whole  house 
could  be  packed  into  our  front  room.  Still, 
"gimme  a  billet  any  time." 

'  I  have  just  received  the  news  that  I  have 
been  given  a  Second  Lieutenancy  in  the 
Motor  Adachine  Gun  Service,  Royal  Field 
Artillery,  and  I  go  into  camp  at  Bisley  at 
once.  I  am  very  glad  that  before  being  an 
officer  I  have  been  a  private,  because  I  now 
have  the  latter's  point  of  view.  I  am  going 
to  try  hard  to  be  a  good  officer;  promotion 
always  means  more  work  and  responsibility, 
—  so  here  goes. 

I  have  been  very  busy  lately  training  my 
new  section,  and  we  are  now  part  of  the  1 2th 
Battery,  Motor  Machine  Guns,  17th  Division 
British  Expeditionary  Force,  leaving  to-day 
for  the  "Great  Adventure." 

66 


Crumps 

Somewhere  in  France.  At  last  we  are  here. 
We  landed  at  a  place  the  name  of  which 
I  am  not  allowed  to  mention,  and  were 
then  taken  by  a  guide  to  a  "Rest  Camp" 
about  two  miles  from  the  docks.  If  they 
had  called  it  a  garbage  dump  I  should  n't 
have  been  surprised.  You  would  be  very 
much  surprised  with  the  France  of  to-day. 
Everybody  speaks  English;  smart  khaki 
soldiers    in   thousands   everywhere. 

Already  I  have  seen  men  who  have  been 
gassed  and  the  hospitals  here  are  full  of 
wounded.  Our  troops  are  arriving  all  day  and 
night  and  marching  away.  English  money  is 
taken  here,  but  French  is  more  satisfactory  as 
you  are  likely  to  get  done  on  the  change.  The 
officers  have  a  mess  here  just  as  in  England. 
Actually  we  are  farther  away  from  the  firing 
line  than  we  were  in  camp  at  Bisley;  but  we 
leave  to-day  on  our  machines  going  direct  to 
it.  There  was  a  transport  torpedoed  just 
outside;  they  managed  to  beach  her  just 
in  time.  The  upper  decks  and  masts  are 
sticking  up  above  water. 

67 


Crumps 

Since  I  last  wrote  anything  in  this  diary 
we  have  ridden  over  one  hundred  and  ten 
miles  by  road  towards  the  firing  line.  All 
day  yesterday  it  poured.  The  country  was 
beautiful,  ripening  corn  everywhere,  the 
villages  are  full  of  old  half-timbered  houses, 
the  roads  are  all  national  roads  built  for 
war  purposes  by  Napoleon,  and  run  straight; 
on  either  side  are  tall,  poplar  shade  trees,  so 
that  the  roads  run  through  endless  avenues. 

At  night  we  stayed  in  a  quaint  village  inn. 
The  men  all  slept  in  a  loft  over  their  machines. 
Our  soaked  clothes  were  put  in  the  kitchen 
to  dry,  but  owing  to  the  number  of  them, 
they  just  warmed  up  by  the  morning.  One 
officer  has  to  follow  in  the  rear  of  every  unit 
to  pick  up  the  stragglers.  I  had  to  bring 
up  the  rear  of  the  column  to-day  —  result:  I 
did  n't  get  in  until  early  in  the  morning, 
only  to  find  the  other  subalterns  "sawing 
wood." 

Yesterday  was  the  French  National  Day. 
We  were   cheered   as   wc   rode   along,   and 

^8 


Crumps 

women  and  children  smothered  us  with 
flowers.  In  the  morning  a  funeral  of  two 
small  children  passed  us.  Our  battery  com- 
mander called  the  battery  to  attention  and 
officers  saluted.  The  priest  was  two  days 
overdue  with  his  shave  —  soldiers  notice 
things  like  that,  you  know. 

To-day  we  continued  our  ride;  the  weather 
was  much  better  —  dried  our  clothes  by 
wearing  them.  Strange  to  run  through 
Normandy  villages  and  suddenly  come  across 
British  Tommies  —  many  of  them  speaking 
French.  A  Royal  Navy  car  has  just  passed 
us;  our  navy  seems  omnipresent.  I  saw  an 
old  woman  reading  a  letter  by  the  side  of  an 
old  farmhouse  to  some  old  people,  evidently 
from  a  soldier,  probably  their  son.  It  re- 
minded me  a  great  deal  of  one  of  Millet's 
pictures.  Every  one  thinks  of  the  war  here 
and  nothing  but  the  war;  it's  not  "Business 
as  Usual." 

We  stay  here  one  night  and  move  away 
to-morrow.    We  can  hear  the  guns  faintly. 

69 


Crumps 

The  three  section  officers,  myself  and  two 
others,  are  sleeping  in  a  hut  together.  It  is 
one  of  these  new  collapsible  kind,  very  con- 
venient. We  are  now  all  in  bed.  Outside 
the  only  sound  we  can  hear  is  the  sentries 
challenging  and  the  mosquitoes  singing. 

All  males  are  soldiers  in  France,  even  the 
old  men.  They  look  very  fine  in  their  blue 
uniforms,  but  I  have  a  prejudice  for  our 
khaki  Tommies.  We  get  good  food  as  we 
travel,  but  pay  war  prices  for  it.  Cherries 
are  now  in  season;  we  don't  pay  for  them, 
however. 

Rode  another  sixty  miles  to-day.  A  car 
smashed  into  the  curb,  cannoned  off  and 
ran  over  me,  busting  my  machine  up.  The 
front  wheel  went  over  my  leg.  My  revolver 
and  leather  holster  saved  me  from  a  fracture, 
but  I  got  badly  bruised  up.  I  was  very 
scared  that  I  should  not  be  able  to  go 
"up"  with  the  Battery.  It  would  be  almost 
a  disgrace  to  go  back  broken  up  by  a  car 

70 


Crumps 

without  even  getting  a  whack  at  the  Boche. 
Had  to  ride  later  on  another  machine  twenty- 
five  miles  through  the  night  without  lights, 
in  a  blinding  rain. 

Everything  interesting.  Should  like  to 
have  a  camera  with  me.  I  had  to  post  mine 
back.  So  many  things  are  done  in  the  British 
Army  by  putting  a  man  on  his  honor.  They 
just  ask  you  to  do  things.  They  don't  order 
you  to  do  it.  It  was  that  way  with  me; 
they  merely  "asked"  me  to  post  my  camera 
back. 

Great  powerful  cars  rush  by  here  all  day 
and  all  night,  regardless  of  speed  limits. 
Every  hour  or  so  you  see  a  convoy  of  twenty 
or  thirty  motor  lorries  in  line  bringing  up 
ammunition  or  supplies,  or  coming  back 
empty.  Every  point  bristles  with  sentries 
who  demand  passes.  If  you  are  not  able  to 
answer  satisfactorily,  they  just  shoot.  The 
French  soldiers  have  magnificent  uniforms; 
the  predominating  color  is  a  sort  of  cobalt 
blue.     To  see  sentries,  French  and  British 

71 


Crumps 

together,    they  make   quite   a    nice    color 
scheme. 

Officers  censor  all  letters.  I  censor  some- 
times fifty  letters  a  day.  One  man  put 
in  a  letter  to-day,  "I  can't  write  anything 
endearing  In  this,  as  my  section  officer  will 
read  it."  Another,  "I  enclose  ten  shillings. 
Very  likely  you  will  not  receive  this,  as  my 
officer  has  to  censor  this  letter."  Of  course 
we  don't  have  time  to  read  all  the  letters 
through.  We  look  for  names  of  places  and 
numbers  of  divisions,  brigades,  etc.,  but  I 
could  n't  help  noticing  that  one  of  my  men, 
whom  I  have  long  suspected  of  being  a  Don 
Juan,  had  by  one  mail  written  exactly  the 
same  letter  to  five  different  girls  in  England, 
altering  only  the  addresses  and  the  affection- 
ate beginnings. 

The  village  in  which  I  am  now  was  visited 
last  September  by  twelve  German  officers 
who  came  through  in  motor  cars;  the  villag- 
ers cried,  "Vivent  les  Anglais,"  for  not  hav- 
ing seen  an  English  soldier  they  took  it  for 
granted  that  the  "Tommy"  had  come. 

72 


THE    LORRY 


Crumps 

Everybody  goes  armed  to  the  teeth.  I 
have  my  belt,  a  regular  Christmas  tree  for 
hanging  things  on,  with  revolver  and  car- 
tridges on  even  while  I  'm  writing  this.  We 
carry  a  lot,  but  we  soon  get  used  to  it. 

The  corn  Is  being  cut  now.  Through  the 
window  opposite  I  can  see  It  standing  In 
newly-stacked  sheaves.  These  places  are 
the  favorite  sketching  grounds  of  artists  in 
normal  times,  and  I  often  wonder  if  they 
ever  will   be   again. 

We  return  salutes  with  all  the  French  and 
Belgian  officers.  It  Is  difficult  sometimes  to 
distinguish  them.  I  got  fooled  by  a  Belgian 
postman,  and  then  went  to  work  and  cut  a 
French  general. 

The  nearer  we  get  to  the  firing  line  the  finer 
the  type  of  soldier.  They  are  the  magnificent 
Britishers  of  Kitchener's  First  Army.  It 
makes  you  proud  to  see  them  marching  by, 
dirty  and  wet  with  sweat.  I  watched  two 
battalions  come  through;  they  had  marched 
twenty  miles  through  the  sun  with  new  issue 

73 


Crumps 

boots ;  a  few  of  them  had  fallen  out,  and  other 
men  and  officers  were  carrying  their  equip- 
ment and  rifles;  many  of  the  officers  carried 
two  rifles. 

I  am  now  well  within  sound  of  the  guns. 
A  German  Taube  was  shelled  as  it  came  over 
our  firing  line  yesterday.  One  man  was  lying 
on  his  back  asleep  with  his  hat  over  his  eyes, 
when  a  piece  of  shrapnel  from  one  of  the 
"Archies"  hit  him  in  the  stomach  —  result: 
one  blasphemous,  indignant  casualty.  From 
the  road  I  can  see  one  of  the  observation 
balloons,  a  queer  sausage-shaped  airship. 
We  may  be  moved  up  into  the  thick  of  it 
at  any  time  now. 

I  have  been  over  into  Belgium  to-day: 
crossed  the  frontier  on  my  motor  bike;  the 
roads  are  terrible,  all  this  beastly  "pave" 
cobblestones;  awful  stuff  to  ride  over  on  a 
motor  cycle.  Shell  holes  on  both  sides  of 
the  road,  and  I  saw  three  graves  in  the 
corner  of  a  hop  garden.  All  along  the 
road  there  were  dozens  and  dozens  of  old 

74 


Crumps 

London  motor  buses,  taking  men  to  the 
trenches.  They  still  have  the  advertisements 
on  them  and  are  driven  by  the  bus-drivers 
themselves.  Three  hundred  came  over  with 
their  own  machines.  They  are  now  soldiers. 
The  observation  balloon  I  mentioned  yester- 
day was  shelled  down  to-day. 

I  am  writing  this  in  an  old  Flemish  farm- 
house, and  the  room  I'm  sitting  in  has  a 
carved  rafter  ceiling,  red  brick  floor  and 
nasty  purple  cabbage  wallpaper.  All  the  men 
of  the  house  with  the  exception  of  the  old 
man  are  at  the  war;  one  son  has  already 
died.  The  Germans  have  been  through  here. 
They  tied  the  mayor  of  the  town  to  a  tree 
and  shot  him.  The  trenches  have  been  filled 
in,  all  the  wreckage  cleared,  and  they  have  a 
new  mayor. 

It  Is  not  yet  7  a.m.  I  am  an  orderly  officer 
and  have  to  take  the  men  out  for  a  run  at  six. 
I  came  back  and  bought  a  London  "Daily 
Mail"  of  yesterday  from  a  country-woman. 
We  are  at  least  three  miles  from  the  town, 

75 


Crumps 

but  they  are  enterprising  enough  to  bring 
papers  to  us  at  this  time  in  the  morning. 
A  "Daily  Mail"  costs  four  cents. 

Since  I  last  wrote  I  have  been  up  to  the 
front  line.  Everything  is  different  from  what 
you  imagine.  The  German  trenches  are 
easily  distinguished  through  glasses;  their 
sand-bags  are  multi-colored.  Shrapnel  was 
bursting  over  ruins  of  an  old  town  in  their 
lines.  When  you  look  through  a  periscope 
at  the  wilderness,  it  is  difficult  to  imagine 
that  thousands  of  soldiers  on  both  sides  have 
burrowed  themselves  into  the  earth.  The 
evidence  of  their  alertness  is  shown  by  their 
snipers,  who  are  always  busy  whenever  the 
target  is  up. 

A  battery  of  eight-inch  howitzers  was 
opening  fire.  Our  battery  commander,  hear- 
ing this,  sent  us  up.  The  guns,  big  fellows, 
were  well  concealed.  They  were  painted  in 
protective  colors  and  covered  with  screens  of 
branches  to  prevent  aerial  observation.  In 
the  grounds  all  over  the  place  were  dug-outs, 
deep  rabbit  burrows,  ten  or  twelve  feet  down, 

76 


Crumps 

Into  which  everybody  went  immediately. 
The  Germans  started  their  "hate."  The 
firing  is  done  by  hand  cord;  other  big  guns 
are  fired  electrically.  An  enormous  flash, 
an  ear-splitting  crash,  a  great  sheet  of  flame 
from  the  muzzle,  and  two  hundred  pounds  of 
steel  is  sent  tearing  through  the  air  to  the 
"Kultur"  exponents.  The  whole  gun  lifts  off 
the  ground  and  runs  back  on  its  oil-com- 
pression springs.  These  guns  are  moved  by 
their  own  caterpillar  tractors  which  are  kept 
somewhere  close  by.  In  three  quarters  of  an 
hour  they  can  get  them  started  on  the  road. 
The  ground  for  these  emplacements  was  the 
orchard  of  a  chateau.  While  we  were  there 
a  whistle  blew  three  times,  an  order  shouted; 
immediately  the  guns  were  covered  up  and 
the  men  took  cover.  The  enemy  had  sent 
an  aeroplane  to  locate  them.  If  they  could 
once  find  them,  hundreds  of  shells  would 
rain  on  this  spot  in  a  few  minutes.  At  a  few 
yards'  distance  I  could  n't  see  the  guns 
myself.  The  "Hows"  were  firing  at  a  house 
in  the  German  lines  which  had  been  giving 

77 


Crumps 

trouble.  In  three  rounds  they  got  it  and 
then  started  in  to  "dust"  the  neighborhood. 
Of  course,  the  firing  is  indirect.  The  officers 
and  men  who  are  with  the  guns  don't  see  the 
effects.  Apparently  they  fire  straight  away 
in  the  air.  The  observation  is  done  by  the 
forward  observing  ofHcer  in  the  fire  trenches 
who  corrects  them  by  'phone. 

After  the  appointed  number  of  rounds  had 
been  fired,  we  adjourned  to  the  chateau,  a 
fine  house,  marble  mantelpiece,  plaster  ceil- 
ings, gilt  mirror  panels,  etc.  It  has  still  a 
few  pieces  of  furniture  left,  no  carpets,  most 
of  the  windows  are  smashed;  shells  have 
visited  it,  but  chiefly  in  splinters.  I  saw  one 
picture  on  the  wall  with  a  hole  drilled  in  by 
a  shrapnel  bullet  which  had  gone  clean 
through  as  though  it  had  been  drilled.  It 
had  n't  smashed  the  glass  otherwise.  From  a 
window  of  the  room,  which  the  officers  use 
as  a  mess,  a  neat  row  of  graves  Is  to  be  seen. 
Outside  there  are  great  shell  holes,  most 
of  them  big  enough  to  bury  a  horse.  Sud- 
denly a  shriek  and  a  deafening  explosion 

78 


Crumps 

occurred  In  the  garden.  "  Sixty-pound  shrap- 
nel! Evening  hate,"  said  an  artillery  sub. 
We  left!  We  had  been  sent  up  to  see  the 
guns  fire  and  not  to  be  fired  at. 

To  go  home  we  had  to  pass  a  village  com- 
pletely deserted,  a  village  that  was  once 
prosperous,  where  people  lived  and  traded 
and  only  wanted  to  be  left  alone.  Now  grass 
is  growing  in  the  streets.  Shops  have  their 
merchandise  strewn  and  rotting  in  all  direc- 
tions. On  one  fragment  of  a  wall  a  family 
portrait  was  still  hanging,  and  a  woman's 
undergarments.  A  grand  piano,  and  a  per- 
ambulator tied  in  a  knot  were  trying  to 
get  down  through  a  coal  chute.  To  wander 
through  a  village  like  this  one  that  has  been 
smashed  up,  and  with  the  knowledge  that 
the  smashing  up  may  be  continued  any  time, 
is  thrilling.  Churches  are  always  hateful  to 
the  Germans.  They  shell  them  all;  bits  of 
the  organs  are  wrapped  around  the  tomb- 
stones, and  coffins,  bones  and  skulls  are 
churned  up  into  a  great  stew.  In  some  of  the 
villages  a  few  of  the  inhabitants  had  stayed 

79 


Crumps 

and  traded  with  the  soldiers.  They  lived  in 
cellars  usually  and  suffered  terribly.  British 
military  police  direct  the  traffic  when  there 
is  any,  and  are  stationed  at  crossroads  with 
regular  beats  like  a  city  policeman. 

While  traveling   to    another   part  of  the 
line  we  had  an  opportunity  of  seeing  the 
"Archies"     (anti-aircraft     guns)     working. 
They  were  mounted  on  lorries  and  fire  quite 
good-sized   shells.     They   fired   about  fifty 
shots  at  one  Taube,  but  did  n't  register  a 
bull.    Later  in  the  evening  from  a  trench  we 
had  the  satisfaction  of  seeing  another  aero- 
plane  set  on  fire,  burn,  and  drop  into  the 
German  lines  like  a  shot  partridge.     Aero- 
planes are  as  common  as    birds.    Yesterday 
a  "Pfeil"  (arrow)  biplane  came  right  over 
our  lines    and   was    chased  off  by  our  own 
machines.     The    enemy's    aeroplanes    have 
their  iron  cross  painted  on  the  underside  of 
their  wings  and  are  more  hawkish-looking 
than   ours.    They  are  more  often  used  for 
reconnoitering  and  taking  photographs  than 
for  dropping  bombs. 

80 


Crumps 

We  are  being  moved  up  closer  to  the  fir- 
ing line.  I  have  been  made  billeting  officer. 
I  went  to  headquarters;  a  staff  colonel 
showed  me  a  subdivision  on  a  map.  "Go 
there  and  select  a  place  for  your  unit."  The 
place  was  a  wretched  village  of  about  six 
houses,  all  of  which  are  more  •  or  less 
smashed  about,  windows  repaired  with 
sacking  and  pieces  of  wood.  All  of  the 
inhabitants  have  moved  except  those  who 
are  too  poor.  Every  square  inch  is  utilized. 
I  managed  to  get  a  cow-shed  for  the  officers. 
It  looks  comfortable.  On  the  door  I  could 
just  decipher,  written  in  chalk,  by  some  pre- 
vious billeting  officer,  — 

2  Staff  Officers 
6  Officers 
2  Horses 

Billeting  chalk  marks  are  on  almost  all  the 
shops  and  houses  up  from  the  coast  to  the 
front. 

The  field  which  we  are  expecting  to  put 
the  men  into  belonged  to  a  miller  who  lived 

8i 


Crumps 

in  a  different  area.  We  went  to  see  him.  He 
could  n't  speak  English  or  French,  so  I  tried 
him  with  German.  While  we  were  talking, 
I  noticed  some  non-coms  watching  us  very 
intently  and  was  not  surprised  to  find  one 
following  us  back  down  the  road.  When  he 
saw  our  car  he  came  up  and  apologized  for 
having  taken  us  for  spies.  They  are  looking 
for  two  Germans  in  our  lines  wearing  Brit- 
ish uniforms,  who  have  given  several  gun 
positions  away.  Two  days  ago  the  enemy 
shelled  the  road  systematically  on  both  sides 
for  half  a  mile  when  an  ammunition  column 
was  due.  It  was  quite  dark  before  we  left; 
the  sky  was  continually  lit  up  by  the  star 
shells,  very  pretty  white  rockets,  which  light 
up  No  Man's  Land.  The  enemy  has  a  very 
good  kind  which  remains  alight  for  several 
minutes. 

Our  days  of  comfortable  billets  are  over, 
I  am  afraid.  Unless  you  are  working  hard, 
it  is  miserable  here,  —  wrecked  towns,  bad 
roads,  shell  holes,  smells,  dirt,  soldiers, 
horses,    trenches.     The    inhabitants   are   a 

82 


Crumps 

poor,  wretched  lot.  Many  of  them  are 
thieves  and  spies.  We  are  right  in  Bel- 
gium, where  flies  and  smells  are  as  varied 
as  in  the  Orient. 

Wherever  we  travel  by  day  or  night  we  are 
constantly  challenged  by  sentries  and  have 
to  produce  our  passes.  We  stopped  in  one 
darkened  shell-riddled  town  and  knocked  up 
an  estaminet;  we  got  a  much  finer  meal  than 
you  can  get  at  many  places  farther  back. 
We  talked  to  the  woman  who  kept  it  and 
asked  her  if  she  slept  in  the  cellar.  "Oh,  no! 
I  sleep  upstairs,  they  never  bombard  except 
at  three  in  the  morning  or  nine  at  night. 
Then  I  go  into  the  cellar."  This  woman  was 
a  very  pleasant,  intelligent  person,  most 
probably  a  spy.  Intelligent  people  gener- 
ally leave  the  danger  zone. 

Marching  through  the  sloughed-up  mud, 
through  shell  holes  filled  with  putrid  water, 
amongst  most  depressing  conditions,  I  saw 
a  working  party  returning  to  their  billets. 
They  were  wet  through  and  wrapped  up  with 
scarves,   wool    helmets,    and   gloves.     Over 

83 


Crumps 

their  clothes  was  a  veneer  of  plastered  mud. 
They  marched  along  at  a  slow  swing  and  in 
a  mournful  way  sang  — 

"Left  — Left  — Left 
We  —  are  —  the  tough  Guys !  '* 

Apparently  there  are  no  more  words  to  this 
song  because  after  a  pause  of  a  few  beats 
they  commenced  again  — 

"Left  — Left  — Left  — " 

They  looked  exactly  what  they  said  they 
were. 

Windmills,  of  which  there  are  a  good 
many,  are  only  allowed  to  work  under  ob- 
servation. It  was  found  that  they  were 
often  giving  the  enemy  information,  using 
the  position  of  the  sails  to  spell  out  codes  in 
the  same  way  as  in  semaphore;  clock-hands 
on  church  towers  are  also  used  in  the  same 
way. 

I  saw  a  pathetic  sight  to-day.  A  stretcher 
came  by  with  a  man  painfully  wounded;  he 
was  inclined  to  whimper;  one  of  the  stretcher- 

84 


Crumps 

bearers  said  quietly  to  him,  ''Be  British." 
He  immediately  straightened  himself  out 
and  asked  for  a  "fag."    He  died  that  night. 

We  had  a  terrific  bombardment  last  night; 
the  ground  shook  all  night  and  the  sky 
was  lit  up  for  miles.  The  Boches  used 
liquid  fire  on  some  new  troops  and  we  lost 
ground. 

I  found  this  piece  of  poetry  on  the  wall  of 
a  smashed-up  chateau,  and  I  have  copied  it 
exactly  as  I  found  it.  The  writing  was  on  a 
darkened  wall,  and  while  I  copied  it  my  guide 
held  a  torchlight  up  to  it.  The  place  passes 
as  "Dead  Cow  Farm"  on  all  official  maps. 

''I've  traveled  many  journeys  in  my  one  score  years 

and  ten, 
And  oft  enjoyed  the  company  of  jovial  fellow  men, 
But  of  all  the  happy  journeys  none  can  compare  to 

me 
With  the  Red-Cross  special  night  express  from  the 

trenches  to  the  sea. 

"It's  Bailleul,  Boulogne,  Blighty,  that's  the  burden 
of  the  song, 
Oh,  speed  the  train  along. 

85 


Crumps 


If  you*ve  only  half  a  stomach  and  you  have  n't  got 

a  knee, 
You'll  choke  your  groans  and  try  to  shout  the  chorus 

after  me. 

Bailleul,  Boulogne,  and  Blighty,  dear  old  Blighty 
'cross  the  sea.' 

"Now  some  of  us  are  mighty  bad  and  some  are 

wounded  slight. 
And  some  will  see  their  threescore  years  and  some 

won't  last  the  night, 
But  the  Red  Cross  train  takes  up  the  strain  all  in  a 

minor  key 
And  sings  Boulogne  and  Blighty  as  she  rumbles  to 

the  sea. 

**0h,  it's  better  than  the  trenches  and  it's  better  than 
the  rain. 

It's  better  than  the  mud  and  stink;  we're  going  home 
again. 

Though  most  of  us  have  left  some  of  us  on  the  wrong 
side  of  the  sea. 

We  are  a  lot  of  blooming  cripples,  but  —  down- 
hearted? No,  siree. 

."There's  a  holy  speed  about  this  train  for  each  of  us 
can  see 
That  we  will  cross  the  shining  channel  that  lies  'twixt 

her  and  me 
To  the  one  and  only  Blighty,  our  Blighty,  '  cross  the 

sea,' 
Where  the  blooming  Huns  can  never  come,  'twixt 
her  and  home  and  me." 
86 


Crumps 

"Blighty"  is  the  wound  which  sends  a 
man  home  to  England;  it's  a  war  word  which 
came  originally  from  the  Indians,  but  now 
universally  adopted  in  the  new  trench  lan- 
guage. ; 

I  was  walking  along  a  trench  when  a  man, 
who  was  sitting  on  a  iirestep  looking  up  into 
a  little  trench  mirror  (which  is  used  by  put- 
ting the  end  of  the  bayonet  between  the 
glass  and  the  frame),  just  crumpled  up,  shot 
through  the  heart.  He  did  n't  say  a  word. 
The  trench  had  thinned  out  and  the  bullet 
had  come  through,  nearly  four  feet  down 
from  the  top  of  the  parapet. 

Bad  shell  fire  this  afternoon.  Saw  shells 
churning  things  up  seventy-five  yards  away; 
many  passed  overhead;  had  a  ride  on  my 
motor  cycle  with  the  other  officers  to  recon- 
noiter  the  roads  leading  down  to  the  part  of 
the  trenches  we  have  taken  over;  road  was 
shelled  as  we  came  along.  Two  "  coal  boxes  " 
hit  the  road  and  smashed  up  a  cottage  in 
front  of  us;  we  picked  up  pieces  of  the  shell 
too  hot  to  hold. 

87 


Crumps 

Our  billet  now  is  another  large  farm,  with 
the  pump  in  the  center  of  the  manure  heap 
as  usual;  our  machines  are  parked  all  round 
a  field  close  to  the  hedges  to  make  a  smaller 
target  and  also  to  prevent  aerial  observation. 

I  went  through  a  town  this  morning  which 
has  been  on  everybody's  lips  for  months  — 
I  have  never  seen  such  devastation  in  my 
life;  it  baffles  description.  The  San  Fran- 
cisco earthquake  was  a  joke  to  this.  Thou- 
sands and  thousands  of  shells  have  pummeled 
and  smashed  until  very  little  remains  besides 
wreckage.  Most  of  the  shelling  has  been 
done  to  deliberately  destroy  the  objects  of 
architectural  value. 

My  quarters  are  in  a  loft  amongst  rags,  old 
agricultural  implements,  sacks,  and  the  ac- 
cumulation of  years  of  dirt;  flies  wake  me 
up  at  daylight. 

This  morning  I  went  for  a  drink  in  the 
estaminet  I  have  mentioned  already.  Two 
shells  have  been  through  the  sides  of  the 
house  since  we  were  last  there,  but  they  both 
came  through  at  the  usual  scheduled  time.   " 

8S 


Crumps 

This  poor  country  is  pockmarked  with 
shell  craters  like  a  great  country  with  a  skin 
disease.  Trees  have  been  splintered  worse 
than  any  storm  could  do.  Nothing  has  been 
spared.  The  mineral  rights  of  this  territory 
should  be  very  valuable  some  day.  When 
we  have  all  finished  salting  the  earth  with 
nickel,  lead,  steel,  copper,  and  aluminum, 
old-metal  dealers  will  probably  set  up  offices 
in  No  Man's  Land. 

Belgium  will  have  to  be  rebuilt  entirely, 
or  left  as  it  is,  a  monument  to  "Kultur.'\ 

My  section  has  been  ordered  up  to  a  divi- 
sional area  on  the  south  of  the  salient.  In 
accordance  with  instructions  I  went  up  to 
Ypres  this  morning  to  find  a  place  to  park 
the  machines. 

Contrary  to  the  popular  belief,  we  do  not 
fight  our  guns  from  the  motor  cycles  them- 
selves. We  use  our  machines  to  get  about 
on,  and  the  guns  are  taken  up  as  near  as 
possible  to  the  position  we  are  to  occupy, 
which  is  usually  behind  Brigade  Headquar- 

89 


Crumps 

ters.  Brigadiers  have  a  great  aversion  to  any 
kind  of  motor  vehicle  being  driven  past  their 
headquarters,  owing  to  the  movement  and 
noise,  which  they  believe  attracts  attention  to 
themselves,  and  as  a  rule  the  sentries  posted 
outside  will  see  that  no  machines  go  by.  We 
get  up  as  far  as  we  can,  because  after  we  part 
from  our  machines,  everything  must  be  car- 
ried up  through  the  trenches  by  hand. 

I  arrived  at  the  town  early  and  reported 
to  the  major  who  is  in  charge  of  the  town  and 
of  the  troops  quartered  there.  He  was  liv- 
ing in  the  prison,  a  substantial  brick  and 
stone  building,  which  has  been  smashed  about 
a  bit,  but  which  is  still  a  fairly  good  struc- 
ture. The  major  Is  a  fine,  gruff  old  gentle- 
man who  was  a  master  of  fox  hounds  in  the 
North  of  England.  He  came  over  with  a 
detachment  of  cavalry.  He  is  past  the  age 
limit,  and  it  was  decided  that  although  he  was 
a  fine  soldier,  perhaps  his  age  would  be  a 
deterrent  and  his  job  ought  to  be  something 
lighter,  so  they  gave  him  one  of  the  fiercest 
jobs  in  the  world  —  O.  C.  Ypres ! 

90 


Crumps 

I  was  sent  in,  and  when  he  heard  my  er- 
rand he  said,  "You  want  to  park  your  ma- 
chines in  Ypres?  Why  don't  you  take  them 
up  in  the  German  front  lines?  You'll  be  safer 
there  than  here.  Listen  to  the  shelling  now." 
I  knew  this,  but  I  was  doing  just  exactly 
what  I  was  told.  He  continued :  "  I  have  now 
thousands  of  troops  here  and  my  daily  casual- 
ties are  enormous,  so  naturally  I  don't  want 
any  more  men.  The  best  plan  for  you  will  be 
to  go  down  the  Lille  road  and  pick  a  house 
below  '  Shrapnel  Comer.' " 

I  went  on  through  the  town,  under  the 
Lille  gate,  across  the  tram  lines,  past  the 
famous  cross-roads  known  as  "Shrapnel 
Comer"  and  chummed  up  with  some  artil- 
lery officers.  They  told  me  that  I  could 
have  any  of  the  houses  I  wanted.  I  picked 
a  couple  which  looked  to  me  to  be  more  com- 
plete than  the  rest  and  chalked  them  up. 
This  whole  place  was  alive  with  batteries. 
While  I  was  there  I  heard  a  shout  and  sud- 
denly a  hidden  battery  of  guns,  sunk  behind 
the  road  with  the  muzzles  almost  resting  on 

91 


Crumps 

it,  started  firing  across  in  the  direction  of  the 
part  of  Belgium  occupied  by  Fritz.  I  had 
passed  within  two  feet  of  these  guns  and  yet 
had  not  seen  them,  they  were  so  well  "  camou- 
flaged." On  my  way  back  I  saw  the  "Big 
Berthas"  bursting  in  the  town,  and  I  was 
surprised  that  so  little  damage  had  been 
actually  done  to  the  Lille  gate  itself.  Shells 
had  visited  everywhere  in  the  neighborhood, 
but  had  not  smashed  this  old  structure. 

I  went  home,  collected  my  men  together, 
and  told  them  the  importance  of  the  work 
we  were  to  undertake.  I  have  found  it  al- 
ways a  good  thing  to  make  the  men  think  the 
job  that  they  are  doing  is  of  great  importance. 
Better  results  are  obtained  that  way. 

We  went  to  an  "engineer  dump"  on  the 
way  up  just  after  the  enemy  had  landed  a 
shell  on  a  wagon  loading  building  material, 
and  wounded  were  being  carried  off  and  the 
mangled  horses  had  been  dragged  on  one 
side.  As  the  wounded  came  by  I  called  my 
section  to  attention,  the  compliment  due  to 
wounded  men  paid  by  units  drawn  up. 

92 


Crumps 

We  drew  our  sandbags  in  the  usual  way 
by  requisitioning  for  five  thousand  and  get- 
ting one  thousand.  Always  ask  for  more 
than  you  expect  to  get. 

As  we  came  into  Ypres,  a  military  police- 
man on  duty  told  me  it  was  unhealthy  to  go 
the  usual  way  through  the  Market  Square, 
because  the  shelling  was  bad  in  that  part  of 
the  town,  so  I  spread  the  machines  out  and 
started  on  down  a  side  street.  We  were  get- 
ting on  finely  and  I  was  congratulating  my- 
self on  getting  through,  when  two  houses, 
hit  from  the  back,  collapsed  across  the 
street  in  front  of  my  machine.  Without 
any  ceremony  I  turned  my  machine  back 
along  the  street  which  we  had  come  and 
went  through  the  Market  Square  down  the 
Lille  road,  under  the  gate,  being  followed  by 
my  section.  About  four  hundred  yards  down 
I  stopped;  holding  my  solo  motor  cycle  be- 
tween my  legs,  standing  up,  I  looked  back. 
I  counted  my  machines  as  they  came  up.  If 
it  had  n't  been  so  scary,  it  really  would 
have    been   funny,  to    see   these   machines 

93 


Crumps 

coming  down  the  road  through  shell  holes 
and  over  piles  of  bricks,  as  fast  as  the 
drivers  could  make  them  go.  The  men  were 
hanging  on  for  dear  life  and  the  machines, 
rocked  from  side  to  side,  but  they  were  all 
there. 

Down  the  road  we  went  to  the  houses; 
there  we  parked  the  machines  and  unpacked. 
A  guard  was  placed  over  them  and  the  rest 
of  us  marched  down  to  the  trenches. 

An  officer  has  to  buy  all  his  own  equip- 
ment and  is  allowed  two  hundred  and  fifty 
dollars  by  the  Government  towards  the  cost. 
An  officer  carries  a  revolver,  but  all  junior 
officers  as  soon  as  possible  acquire  a  rifle." 
The  men  of  a  "salvage  company"  were 
collecting  all  the  rifles,  bayonets,  and  parts 
of  equipment  near  where  I  was  to-day 
and  I  managed  to  get  a  Lee-Enfield  (British 
rifle)  in  good  shape.  I  felt  that  I  would 
like  to  have  a  rifle  and  bayonet  handy. 
I  found  a  good-looking  bayonet  sticking  in 
the  side  of  a  sandbag  wall.  It  looked  lonely. 

94 


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Crumps 

The  scabbard  I  am  using  was  resting  in  a 
loft  of  a  deserted  brewety.  I  am  now  com- 
plete with  rifle,  bayonet,  and  scabbard. 

Sometimes  you  see  a  man  smashed  about 
in  a  terrible  way,  such  a  mess  that  you  think 
he  is  a  goner;  he  may  recover.  Another  man 
may  have  just  a  small  wound  and  will  die. 
A  bullet  hitting  a  man  in  the  head  will  smash 
it  as  effectually  as  a  sledge-hammer.  Once 
a  man  leaves  your  unit,  wounded,  you  don't 
see  him  again.    You  get  a  fresh  draft. 

No  one  thinks  of  peace  here.  Germany 
must  be  put  in  a  similar  state  to  Belgium 
first. 

We  never  travel  anywhere  without  our 
smoke  helmets;  they  come  right  over  our 
heads  and  are  tucked  into  our  shirts;  they 
have  two  glass  eye-pieces.  When  we  have 
them  on  we  look  like  the  old  Spanish  gen- 
tleman who  ran  the  "Star  Chamber." 
Helmets  must  always  be  ready  to  put  on 
instantly.  Gas  is  a  matter  of  seconds  in 
coming  over.  The  helmets  are  better  than 
respirators,  but  have  to  be  constantly  in- 

95 


Crumps 

spected.    A  small  hole,  or  if  one  is  allowed  to 
dry,  means  a  casualty. 

Storm  brewing.  Flies  bad,  driven  in  by 
the  wind.  Nature  goes  on  just  the  same.  I 
suppose  that  this  farm  would  be  just  as  fly- 
ridden  in  an  ordinary  summer.  During  the 
bombarding  yesterday  I  noticed  swallows 
flying  about  quite  unconcerned.  Corn, 
mostly  self-planted,  grows  right  up  to  the 
trenches.  Cabbages  grow  wild.  Communi- 
cating trenches  run  right  through  fields  of 
crops;  flowers  grow  in  profusion  between  the 
lines,  big  red  poppies  and  field  daisies,  and 
there  are  often  hundreds  of  little  frogs  in  the 
bottom  of  the  trenches. 

A  trip  to  No  Man's  Land  is  an  excursion 
which  you  never  forget.  It  varies  in  width 
and  horrors.  My  impression  was  similar  to 
what  I  should  feel  being  on  Broadway  with- 
out any  clothes  —  a  naked  feeling.  Forty- 
seven  and  one  half  inches  of  earth  are  neces- 
sary to  stop  a  bullet,  and  it's  nice  to  have  that 
amount  of  dirt  between  you  and  the  enemy's 

96 


Crumps 

bullets.  The  dead  lie  out  in  between  the  lines 
or  hang  up  on  the  wire;  they  don't  look 
pretty  after  they  have  been  out  some  time. 
It's  a  pleasant  job  to  have  to  get  their  iden- 
tification disks,  and  we  have  to  search  the 
bodies  of  the  enemy  dead  for  papers  and 
even  buttons  so  that  we  can  know  what  unit 
is  in  front  of  us.  Flowers  grow  in  between, 
butterflies  play  together,  and  birds  nest 
in  the  wire.  When  the  grass  becomes  too 
high  it  has  to  be  cut,  because  otherwise  it 
would  prevent  good  observation.  In  some 
places  grass  does  n't  have  a  chance  to  even 
take  root,  let  alone  grow.  The  shells  take 
care  of  that. 

I  managed  to  get  a  translation  of  a  diary 
kept  by  a  German  soldier  who  fell  on  the 
field.  Below  is  an  exact  translation  and  gives 
the  point  of  view  of  a  man  in  the  trenches  on 
the  other  side  of  the  line.  He  was  writing- 
his  diary  at  the  same  time  I  was  writing  mine, 
and  we  were  both  fighting  around  the  salient 
at  Ypres,  Hooge  being  on  the  point  of  the 
salient  farthest  east.    This  part,  which  was 

97 


Crumps 

once  a  place  of  beauty  which  people  came 
long  distances  to  see,  is  now  like  a  great 
muddy  Saragossa  Sea  which  at  the  height  of 
its  fury  has  suddenly  become  frozen  with 
the  tortured  limbs  of  trees  and  men,  and 
wreckage  and  reeking  smells,  until  it  can 
again  lash  itself  in  wild  fury  into  whirlpools. 
It  is  in  all  respects  Purgatory,  but  of  greater 
horror  than  Dante  ever  dreamt  of. 

Diary  of  F P of  the  6th  Company ^ ' 

^d   Battalion,   J32d  Regiment.      Killed   at 
Hooge  on  August  gth,  IQIS' 

On  May  lo,  we  were  told  to  prepare  for  the 
journey  to  the  front.  Each  man  received  his  j 
service  ammunition  and  two  days*  rations,  and 
we  then  started  with  heavy  packs  on  our  backs 
and  our  water-bottles  full  of  coffee.  After  a  long 
march  we  reached  our  reserve  position,  where  we 
were  put  into  rest  billets  for  two  days  in  wooden 
huts  hidden  in  a  wood.  We  could  hear  from  here 
the  noise  of  the  shells  coming  through  the  air. 

On  May  13,  we  moved  into  the  trenches,  in  the 
night.  We  were  a  whole  hour  moving  along  a 
communication  trench  one  and  one-half  metres 
deep,  right  up  to  the  front  line  some  fifty  metres 

98 


Crumps 

from  the  enemy.  This  was  to  be  our  post.  We 
had  hardly  got  in  before  the  bullets  came  flying 
over  our  heads.  Look  out  for  the  English  1  They 
know  how  to  shoot!  I  need  hardly  say  we  did 
not  wait  to  return  the  compliment.  We  answered 
each  one  of  their  greetings  and  always  with  suc- 
cess, inasmuch  as  we  stood  to  our  loopholes  for 
twenty-four  hours  with  two-hour  reliefs. 

At  length  early  on  the  15th,  at  four  o'clock, 
came  our  first  attack.  After  a  preliminary  smok- 
ing-out  with  gas,  our  artillery  got  to  work,  and 
about  ten  o'clock  we  climbed  out  of  the  trenches 
and  advanced  fifty  metres  in  the  hail  of  bullets. 
Here  I  got  my  first  shot  through  the  coat.  Three 
comrades  were  killed  at  the  outset  of  the  assault, 
and  some  twenty  slightly  or  severely  wounded, 
but  we  had  obtained  our  object.  The  trench  was 
ours,  although  the  English  twice  attempted  to 
turn  us  out  of  it. 

The  fight  went  on  till  eleven  o'clock  that  even- 
ing. We  were  then  relieved  by  the  loth  Com- 
pany, and  made  our  way  back  along  the  com- 
munication trenches  to  our  old  positions.  Here 
we  remained  until  the  third  day,  standing  by  at 
night  and  passing  two  days  without  sleep.  We 
were  hardly  able  to  get  our  meals.  From  every 
side  firing  was  going  on,  and  shots  came  plugging 
two  metres  deep  into  the  ground.  This  was  my 
baptism  of  fire.  It  cannot  be  described  as  it 
really  is  —  something  like  an  earthquake,  when 

99 


Crumps 

the  big  shells  come  at  one  and  make  holes  in  the 
ground  large  enough  to  hold  forty  or  fifty  men 
comfortably.  How  easy  and  comfortable  seemed 
our  road  back  to  the  huts. 

We  remained  in  the  huts  for  three  days,  rest- 
ing before  we  went  up  again  to  "Hell  Fire,"  as 
they  call  the  first  line  trenches  in  front  of  Ypres. 

Then  suddenly  in  the  middle  of  the  night  an 
alarm.  Our  neighbors  had  allowed  themselves 
to  be  driven  out  of  our  hard-won  position,  and 
the  6th  Company,  with  the  8th  and  5th,  had  to 
make  good  the  lost  ground.  A  hasty  march 
through  the  communication  trenches  up  to  the 
front,  the  night  lit  up  far  and  wide  with  search- 
lights and  flares  and  ourselves  in  a  long  chain 
lying  on  our  bellies.  Towards  two  in  the  morn- 
ing the  Englishmen  came  on,  1500  men  strong. 
The  battle  may  be  imagined.  About  200  returned 
to  the  line  they  started  from.  Over  1300  dead 
and  wounded  lay  on  the  ground.  Six  machine 
guns  and  a  quantity  of  rifles  and  equipment  were 
taken  back  by  us,  the  1 3  2d  Regiment,  and  the 
old  position  was  once  more  in  our  possession. 
What  our  neighbors  lost  the  13 2d  regained. 
There  was  free  beer  that  evening  and  a  concert! 
At  II  p.  M.  once  more  we  withdrew  to  the  rear, 
our  2d,  4th  and  loth  Companies  relieving  us. 
We  slept  a  whole  day  and  night  like  the  dead. 

On  June  15th,  we  again  went  back  to  rest  bil- 
lets, but  towards  midday  we  were  once  more  sent 
100 


Crumps 

up  to  the  front  line  to  reinforce  our  right  wing, 
which  was  attacked  by  French  and  English. 
Just  as  we  got  to  our  trenches  we  were  greeted 
by  a  heavy  shell  fire,  the  shells  falling  in  front  of 
our  parapets,  making  the  sandbags  totter.  See- 
ing this,  I  sprang  to  the  spot  and  held  the  whole 
thing  together  till  the  others  hurried  up  to  my 
assistance.  Just  as  I  was  about  to  let  go,  I  must 
have  got  my  head  too  high  above  the  parapet,  as 
I  got  shot  in  the  scalp.  In  the  excitement  I  did 
not  at  once  realize  that  I  was  wounded,  until 
Gubbert  said  — "Hullo,  Musch!  Why,  you  're 
bleeding!"  The  stretcher-bearer  tied  me  up, 
and  I  had  to  go  back  to  the  dressing-station  to 
be  examined.  Happily  it  was  nothing  more  than 
a  mere  scalp  wound,  and  I  was  only  obliged  to 
remain  on  the  sick-list  four  days,  having  the  place 
attended  to. 

June  24th.  All  quiet  in  the  West,  except  for 
sniping.  The  weather  is  such  that  no  offensive 
can  take  place.  The  English  will  never  have  a 
better  excuse  for  inactivity  than  this  —  "It  is 
raining."  Thank  God  for  that!  Less  dust  to 
swallow  to-day!  Odd  that  here  in  Belgium  we 
are  delighted  with  the  rain,  while  in  Germany 
they  are  watching  It  with  anxiety. 

To-day  we  shall  probably  be  relieved.  Then 
we  go  to  Menin  to  rest.  Ten  days  without  com- 
ing under  fire.     It  is  Paradise! 

Sunday,  June  27th.    At  nine  o'clock  clean  up. 

lOl 


Crumps 

At  eleven  roll-call.  At  three  o'clock  went  to  the 
Cinema  —  very  fine  pictures.  In  the  afternoon 
all  the  men  danced  till  seven,  but  we  had  to  take 
each  other  for  partners  —  no  girls. 

July  2d.  1 1  p.  M.  Alarm.  Three  persons  have 
been  arrested  who  refused  to  make  sandbags. 
They  were  pulled  out  of  bed  and  carried  off. 
Eight  o'clock  marched  to  drill.  This  lasts  till  II. 
Then  i  to  4  rest.  Six,  physical  drill  and  games. 
I  went  to  the  Cinema  in  the  evening. 

July  6th.  Inspection  till  eleven.  Three  hours 
standing  in  the  sun  —  enough  to  drive  me  silly. 
Twenty-three  men  fell  out.  Three  horses  also 
affected  by  the  heat.  Eleven  to  one  Parade 
march  —  in  the  sun.  Thirty-six  more  men  re- 
ported sick.    I  was  very  nearly  one  of  them. 

July  9th.  Preparation  for  departure.  From 
seven  to  ten  pack  up  kits.  Eleven,  roll-call. 
One-thirty,  march  to  light  railway.  At  seven 
reached  firing  trench.  The  English  are  firing 
intermittently  over  our  heads;  otherwise,  all  is 
quiet.  We  are  now  on  the  celebrated,  much-be- 
written-about  "Hill  60."  Night  passes  without 
incident. 

July  1 2th.  At  three  In  the  morning  the  enemy 
makes  a  gas  attack.  We  put  on  respirators. 
Rifle  in  hand  we  leap  from  the  trenches  and  as- 
sault. In  front  of  Hill  60  the  enemy  breaks,  and 
we  come  into  possession  of  a  trench.  Rapid  dig- 
ging.   Counter-attack  repulsed.    At  nine  o'clock 

102 


Crumps 


all  Is  quiet,  only  the  artillery  still  popping.  This 
evening  we  are  to  be  relieved.  The  13  2d  Regi- 
ment is  much  beloved  by  the  English !  In  a  dug- 
out we  found  two  labels.  One  of  them  had  the 
following  writing  on  it:  "God  strafe  the  13 2d 
Regiment  (not  "God  strafe  England"  this  time). 
Sergeant  Scott  (?)  Remington,  Sewster  Wall  (?)." 
On  the  other  was,  "I  wish  the  Devil  would  take 
you,  you  pigs." 

At  7.20  Hill  60  is  bombarded  by  artillery,  and 
shakes  thirty  to  fifty  metres,  as  if  from  an  earth- 
quake. Two  English  companies  blown  into  the 
air  —  a  terrible  picture.  Dug-outs,  arms,  equip- 
ment —  all  blown  to  bits. 

July  17th.  Marched  to  new  quarters.  We 
have  got  a  new  captain.  He  wants  to  see  the 
company,  so  at  8  a.  m.  drill  in  pouring  rain.  Four 
times  we  have  to  lie  on  our  belly,  and  get  wet 
through  and  through.  All  the  men  grumbling 
and  cursing.  At  eleven  we  are  dismissed.  I,  with 
a  bad  cold  and  a  headache.  I  wish  this  soldiering 
were  all  over. 

July  19th.  At  seven  sharp  we  marched  off  to 
our  position.  Heavy  bombardment.  At  nine 
we  were  buried  by  a  shell.  I  know  no  more.  At 
eleven  I  found  myself  lying  in  the  Field  Hospital. 
I  have  pains  inside  me  over  my  lungs;  and  head- 
ache, and  burning  in  the  joints. 

July  20th.  The  M.O.  has  had  a  look  at  me. 
He  says  my  stomach  and  left  lung  are  suffering 
103 


Crumps 

from  the  pressure  which  was  put  on  them.    The 
principal  remedy  is  rest. 

July  2 1  St.  Thirty-nine  degrees  of  fever  (temp. 
loo°  Fahr.).  Stay  in  bed  and  sleep,  and  oh!  how 
tired  I  am! 

July  22d.  I  slept  all  day.  Had  milk  and  white 
bread  to  eat. 

July  26th.  Returned  to  duty  with  three  days* 
exemption,  i.  e.,  we  do  not  have  any  outdoor 
work. 

July  28th  and  29th.  Still  on  exemption. 
Nothing  to  do  but  sleep  and  think  of  home  and 
of  my  dear  wife  and  daughter.  But  dreaming 
does  not  bring  peace  any  sooner.  How  I  would 
love  an  hour  or  two  back  home. 

July  31st.  In  rest.  Baths  going.  Duke  of 
Wurttemberg  passed  through  our  camp. 

August  1st.  Up  to  the  trenches.  Shrapnel 
flying  like  flies.  A  heavy  bombardment;  bom- 
bardment of  Hooge.  Second  Battalion,  13 2d 
Regiment,  sent  up  to  reinforce  126th  Regiment, 
which  has  already  lost  half  its  men. 

August  4th.  Heavy  artillery  fire  the  whole 
night.  The  English  are  concentrating  50,000 
Indians  on  our  front  to  attack  Hooge  and  Hill 
60.  Just  let  them  come,  we  shall  stand  firm. 
At  three  marched  off  to  the  front.  Watch  be- 
ginning again.  Five  o'clock  marched  off  to  the 
Witches'  Cauldron,  Hooge.  A  terrible  night 
again.  H.E.  and  shrapnel  without  number.  Oh, 
104 


Crumps 

thrice-cursed  Hooge!  In  one  hour  eleven  killed 
and  twenty-three  wounded  and  the  fire  unceas- 
ing. It  is  enough  to  drive  one  mad,  and  we  have 
to  spend  three  days  and  three  nights  more.  It 
is  worse  than  an  earthquake,  and  any  one  who  has 
not  experienced  it  can  have  no  idea  what  it  is 
like.  The  English  fired  a  mine,  a  hole  fifteen 
metres  deep  and  fifty  to  sixty  broad,  and  this 
"cauldron"  has  to  be  occupied  at  night.  At 
present  it  is  n't  too  badly  shelled.  At  every  shot 
the  dug-outs  sway  to  and  fro  like  a  weather-cock. 
This  life  we  have  to  stick  to  for  months.  One 
needs  nerves  of  steel  and  iron.  Now  I  must  crawl 
into  our  hole,  as  trunks  and  branches  of  trees  fly 
in  our  trench  like  spray. 

August  6th.  To-night  moved  to  the  crater 
again,  half  running  and  half  crawling.  At  seven 
a  sudden  burst  of  fire  from  the  whole  of  the  artil- 
lery. From  about  eleven  yesterday  fires  as  if 
possessed.  This  morning  at  four  we  fall  back. 
We  find  the  126th  have  no  communication  with 
the  rear,  as  the  communication  trenches  have 
been  completely  blown  in.  The  smoke  and  thirst 
are  enough  to  drive  one  mad.  Our  cooker  does  n't 
come  up.  The  126th  gives  us  bread  and  coffee 
from  the  little  they  have.  If  only  it  would  stop! 
We  get  direct  hits  one  after  another  and  lie  in  a 
sort  of  dead  end,  cut  off  from  all  communication. 
If  only  it  were  night.  What  a  feeling  to  be  think- 
ing every  second  when  I  shall  get  it!    has 

105 


Crumps 

just  fallen,  the  third  man  in  our  platoon.  Since 
eight  the  fire  has  been  unceasing;  the  earth 
shakes  and  we  with  it.  Will  God  ever  bring  us 
out  of  this  fire?  I  have  said  the  Lord's  Prayer 
and  am  resigned. 


To-day  I  saw  the  "Mound  of  Death"  at 
Saint-Eloi;  it  has  been  mined  a  number  of 
times,  and  thousands  of  shells  have  beaten  it 
into  a  disorderly  heap  of  earth;  the  trenches 
are  tvi^enty-five  yards  apart;  all  the  grass  and 
vegetation  has  been  blown  away  and  never 
has  had  time  to  grow  up  again. 

It's  all  arranged  for  you,  if  there's  a  bit 
of  shell  or  a  bullet  with  your  name  on  it 
you'll  get  it,  so  you've  nothing  to  worry 
about.  You  are  a  soldier  —  then  be  one. 
This  is  the  philosophy  of  the  trenches. 

War  Is  a  great  ager.  Young  men  grow  old 
quickly  here.  It  can  be  seen  in  their  faces; 
they  have  lost  all  the  irresponsibility  of 
youth.  I  have  met  many  men  who  have  been 
here  since  Mons;  they  all  look  weary  and 
1 06 


i 


WIIAI   S    THE    USE 


Crumps 

worn  out  by  the  strain.  Now  new  troops 
are  coming  forward  and  it  is  hoped  that  they 
will  be  able  to  send  some  back  for  a  rest. 

Several  days  ago  the  adjutant  of  the 
Tenth  Battalion  Sherwood  Foresters  came 
to  me  with  this  message  which  was  sent 
through  our  lines:  — 

Arrest  Officer  Royal  Engineers  with  orderly. 
Former,  six  feet,  black  moustache,  web  equip- 
ment, revolver.  Latter,  short,  carries  rifle,  can- 
vas bandolier.  Please  warn  transports  and  all 
concerned. 

Everybody  kept  a  good  lookout  for  these 
spies.  One  sentry  surprised  a  real  R.E. 
officer  named  Perkins  who  was  working  out 
a  drainage  scheme.  Seeming  to  answer  the 
above  description,  he  stalked  him,  —  "Come 

'ere,  you ,  you  're  the 1  Ve  been 

looking  for."  The  officer,  nonplussed,  com- 
menced to  stutter.  "Sergeant,  I've  got  'im 
and  he  can't  speak  a  word  of  English." 
The  sergeant  collected  him  in  and  guarded 
him  until  another  engineer  officer,  known  to 
the  guard,  came  along.  As  soon  as  Perkins 
107 


Crumps 

saw  him,  he  said,  "F-r-r-ed,  t-t-tell  this 
d-d-damn  fool  wh-ho  I  am."  "Who  the 
hell  are  you  calling  Fred?  I  don't  know 
him;  hold  him,  sergeant,  he's  a  desperate 
one."  Scarcely  able  to  contain  his  joy,  Fred 
went  back  to  the  Engineers'  Camp  to  tell 
the  great  news  and  Perkins  spent  three  hours 
in  the  sandbag  dugout  listening  to  a  descrip- 
tion of  what  the  sergeant  and  his  guard 
would  do  to  him  if  they  only  had  their 
way. 

The  real  spies,  who  did  a  great  deal  of 
damage,  were  finally  rounded  up  and  shot  in 
a  listening  post  trying  to  regain  their  own 
lines. 

Enemy  snipers  give  us  a  great  deal  of 
trouble.  It  is  very  difficult  to  locate  them. 
One  of  our  men  tried  out  an  original  scheme. 
He  put  an  empty  biscuit  tin  on  the  para- 
pet. Immediately  the  sniper  put  a  bullet 
through  it.  Now  thought  the  Genius,  "If 
I  look  through  the  two  holes  it  will  give  me 
my  direction,"  —  so  getting  up  on  the  fire- 
io8 


Crumps 

step  he  looked  through,  only  to  roll  over 
with  the  top  of  his  head  smashed  off  by  a 
bullet.  The  sniper  was  shooting  his  initials 
on  the  tin. 

We  are  all  used  to  dead  bodies  or  pieces 
of  men,  so  much  so  that  we  are  not  troubled 
by  the  sight  of  them.  There  was  a  right 
hand  sticking  out  of  the  trench  in  the  po- 
sition of  a  man  trying  to  shake  hands  with 
you,  and  as  the  men  filed  out  they  would 
often  grip  it  and  say,  "So  long,  old  top,  we'll 
be  back  again  soon."  One  man  had  the 
misfortune  to  be  buried  in  such  a  way  that 
the  bald  part  of  the  head  showed.  It  had 
been  there  a  long  time  and  was  sun-dried. 
Tommy  used  him  to  strike  his  matches  on. 
A  corpse  in  a  trench  is  quite  a  feature,  and  is 
looked  for  when  the  men  come  back  again 
to  the  same  trench. 

We  live  mostly  on  bully  beef  and  hard 
tack.  The  first  is  corned  beef  and  the  second 
is  a  kind  of  dog  biscuit.  We  always  won- 
dered why  they  were  so  particular  about  a 

109 


Crumps 

man's  teeth  in  the  army.  Now  I  know.  It's 
on  account  of  these  biscuits.  The  chief  in- 
gredient is,  I  think,  cement,  and  they  taste 
that  way  too.  To  break  them  it  is  necessary 
to  use  the  handle  of  your  entrenching  tool 
or  a  stone.  We  have  fried,  baked,  mashed, 
boiled,  toasted,  roasted,  poached,  hashed, 
devilled  them  alone  and  together  with  bully 
beef,  and  we  have  still  to  find  a  way  of  making 
them  into  interesting  food. 

However,  the  Boche  likes  our  beef.  He 
prefers  the  brand  canned  in  Chicago  to  his 
own,  and  will  almost  sit  up  and  beg  if  we 
throw  some  over  to  him.  The  method  is  as  fol- 
lows: Throw  one  over  .  .  .  sounds  of  shuffling 
and  getting  out  of  the  way  are  heard  in  the 
enemy  trench.  Fritz  thinks  it's  going  to  go 
off.  Pause,  and  throw  another.  Fritz  not 
so  suspicious  this  time.  Keep  on  throwing 
until  happy  voices  from  enemy  trenches 
shout,  "More!  Give  us  more!"  Then  lob 
over  as  many  hand  grenades  as  you  can  pile 
into  that  part  of  the  trench  and  tell  them  to 
share  those  too. 

no 


Crumps 

It  takes  some  time  to  distinguish  whether 
shells  are  arrivals  or  departures,  but  after  a 
while  you  get  into  the  way  of  telling  their 
direction  and  size  by  sound.  Roads  are 
constantly  shelled,  searching  for  troops  or 
supply  columns.  I  was  coming  home  to-day, 
up  a  road  which  ran  approximately  at  right 
angles  to  main  fire  trenches.  At  one  place 
the  road  was  exposed  for  a  matter  of  thirty  or 
forty  feet,  and  again  farther  up  it  was  neces- 
sary to  go  over  the  brow  of  a  small  hill.  This 
was  about  three  hundred  yards  farther  on 
and  was  exposed  to  the  enemy's  view.  Think- 
ing they  would  n't  bother  about  a  single 
rider  on  a  motor  cycle,  I  went  up  past  the 
first  exposed  position.  My  carburetor  was 
giving  me  some  trouble  and  I  thought  I 
would  see  if  any  rain  had  got  into  it,  so  I 
turned  off  the  road  down  a  cross-road  and 
dismounted  whtn  crash!  a  shell  landed  right 
in  the  middle  of  the  road  as  far  up  the  exposed 
place  as  I  was  round  the  corner.  Then  five 
more  followed  the  first  shell.  Had  I  gone 
on  I  could  not  possibly  have  missed  collecting 
fix 


Crumps 

most  of  the  fragments.  The  German  gunners 
had  spotted  me  in  the  first  position  and  de- 
cided that  a  lone  man  on  a  motor  cycle  must 
be  either  an  officer  or  despatch  rider.  So 
they  tried  to  get  him.  The  shells  were  shrap- 
nel and  the  time  was  calculated  splendidly. 
They  had  taken  into  consideration  the  speed 
of  my  motor  cycle.  Cross-roads  are  particu- 
larly attended  to,  for  there  is  a  double  chance 
of  hitting  something,  and  in  consequence  it 
is  always  unhealthy  to  linger  on  a  cross- 
road. 


Dugouts  are  often  made  very  comfortable 
with  windows,  tiled  floors  and  furniture  taken 
from  neighboring  shattered  chateaux.  I  have 
even  seen  them  with  flowers  growing  in  win- 
dow-boxes over  the  entrance.  They  all  have 
names.  Some  I  saw  yesterday  were  called 
"Anti-Krupp  Cottage,"  "Pleasant  View," 
and  "Little  Grey  Home  in  the  West."  There 
was  one  very  homey  site,  well  equipped  and 
fitted,  which  had  been  dubbed  the  "Nut,"  — 
the  colonel  lived  there. 

112 


Crumps 

My  old  corps  brought  an  aeroplane  down 
with  a  machine  gun  last  night.  They  were 
in  a  shell  hole  between  the  main  and  support 
trenches. 

For  the  last  few  days  I  have  been  "up" 
looking  for  gun  positions. 

The  lice  are  getting  to  be  a  torment.  You 
have  no  idea  how  bad  they  are.  Everybody 
up  here  is  infested  with  them.  I  have  tried 
smearing  myself  with  kerosene,  but  that 
does  not  seem  to  trouble  them  at  all.  Silk 
underwear  is  supposed  to  keep  them  down. 
I  suppose  their  feet  slip  on  the  shiny  surface. 

The  food  lately  has  taken  on  a  wonderful 
flavor  and  I  now  know  how  dissolved  Ger- 
man tastes.  The  cook,  instead  of  sending 
back  two  miles  for  water  to  cook  with,  has 
been  using  water  from  the  moat  in  which  a 
Boche  had  been  slowly  disintegrating. 

To-day  I  was  able  to  see  what  a  German 
seventeen-inch  shell  could  do;  one  had  made 
a  crater  fifty  feet  across  and  twenty  feet 
deep  in  the  middle  of  the  road.  The  top  of 
the  road  was  paved  —  think  it  over  —  and 


Crumps 

pieces   kill   at   a   thousand   yards.     Thirty- 
horses  were  buried  in  another  hole. 

I  have  been  given  a  special  job  by  the 
general  to  enfilade  a  wood  over  the  Mound. 
I  have  my  section  now  in  the  second-line 
trenches  waiting  till  it  is  dark  before  making 
a  move.  We  have  to  make  a  machine-gun 
emplacement  in  a  piece  of  ground  which  is 
decidedly  unhealthy  to  visit  during  daylight. 
I  have  been  there  in  daylight,  but  I  had  to 
creep  out  of  it.  On  the  map  it  is  called  a 
farm,  but  the  highest  wall  is  only  three  feet 
six  inches  high. 

Arrived  home  about  two  o'clock  this 
morning.  We  crawled  to  the  place  we  have 
to  take  up,  and  I  put  some  men  filling  sand- 
bags in  the  ruins  and  others  even  digging  a 
dugout.  The  enemy  had  "the  wind  up"  and 
were  using  a  great  number  of  star  shells. 
When  one  goes  up  we  all  "freeze,"  remain  mo- 
tionless, or  lie  still.  They  send  them  up  to  see 
across  their  front,  and  if  they  locate  a  work- 

114 


Crumps 

ing  party,  then  they  start  playing  a  tune 
with  their  machine  guns.  Bullets  and  shells 
whistled  through  the  trees  all  the  time.  They 
seemed  to  come  from  all  directions.  The  men 
did  n't  like  it  at  all.  I  was  n't  altogether 
comfortable  myself,  but  an  officer  must 
keep  going.  I  walked  about  and  joked  and 
laughed  with  them.  The  range-taker  said, 
*'Some  of  us  are  getting  the  didley-i-dums, 
Sir."  I  don't  know  what  that  is,  but  I  had 
a  feeling  that  I  had  them  too. 

Of  course,  to  start  with,  everybody  thinks 
every  single  shell  and  bullet  is  coming 
straight  for  him.  Then  you  find  out  how 
much  space  there  is  around  you.  One  man 
came  to  tell  me  that  two  men  were  firing  at 
him  with  his  own  rifle  from  the  ruins  of  the 
alleged  farmhouse,  ten  yards  away  from  the 
dugout  we  are  making.  Just  then  a  field 
mouse  squeaked,  and  he  jumped  up  in  the 
air  and  said,  "There's  another."  I  told 
the  men  to  fill  sandbags  from  the  ruins; 
they  all  crowded  behind  this  three-foot-six 
wall  for  protection;  they  dug  up  a  French 

115, 


Crumps 

needle  bayonet  —  that  was  all  right,  but  they 
afterwards  dug  up  a  rifle  and  I  noticed  a 
suspicious  smell,  so  I  moved  them. 

We  came  home  very  tired.  We  are  attack- 
ing Hooge,  a  counter-attack,  to  take  back 
trenches  lost  in  the  liquid  fire  attack  —  you 
will  hear  what  we  did  from  the  papers, 
probably  in  three  months'  time. 

I'm  writing  this  in  a  new  home,  this  time 
a  splinter-proof  dugout.  The  Huns  are  again 
strafing  us  —  last  shell  burst  fifty  yards  away 
a  few  minutes  ago.  Several  times  since  I 
started  writing  I  have  had  to  shake  off  the 
dust  and  debris  thrown  by  shell  bursts  on  to 
these  pages.  I  was  again  sniped  at  with  shrap- 
nel this  morning  on  my  machine  while  recon- 
noitering  the  roads  —  they  all  missed,  but 
they  're  not  nice.  I  'm  filthy,  alive,  and  covered 
with  huge  mosquito  bites ;  you  get  sort  of  used 
to  the  incessant  din  in  time.  Even  the  forty- 
two  centimeter  shells,  which  make  a  row  like 
freight  trains  with  loose  couplings  going 
through  the  air,  are  not  so  terrible  now. 
ii6 


Crumps 

Through  a  hole  in  my  dugout  I  can  see  the 
Huns'  shells  Kulturing  a  chateau.  It  was 
once  a  very  beautiful  place  with  a  moat, 
bridges,  and  splendid  gardens.  Now  it's 
useless  except  that  the  timber  and  the  fur- 
niture come  in  useful  for  our  dugouts  and 
the  making  of  "duck  walks,"  the  grated 
walks  which  line  the  bottom  of  the  trenches. 
Last  night  I  was  sitting  in  the  Medical 
Ofhcer's  dugout  when  a  man  I  knew  came 
in.  He  was  an  officer  in  the  Second  Gor- 
dons. "I  feel  pretty  bad,  doc."  He  ex- 
plained his  symptoms.  "Trench  fever;  you 
go  down  the  line."  "No,  fix  me  up  for  to- 
night and  maybe  I  won't  need  anything 
else."  He  didn't!  All  that  is  left  of  him  is 
being  buried  now,  less  than  a  hundred  yards 
from  where  I  write  this. 

Before  I  came  here  I  had  to  go  to  another 
part  of  the  line,  in  which  the  "Princess  Pats" 
distinguished  themselves.  We  have  been 
hanging  on  ever  since,  and  a  mighty  stiff 
proposition  it  is.    The  O.C.  to-day  told  me 

117 


Crumps 

that  he  had  not  slept  for  fifty-six  hours.  The 
Germans  in  one  place  are  only  twenty-five 
yards  away  —  so  close  that  conversation  is 
carried  on  in  a  whisper. 

In  one  place  they  had  stuck  up  a  board 
with  "Warsaw  Captured"  on  it. 

My  section  worked  until  two  o'clock  and 
then  the  sandbags  gave  out,  so  we  had  to 
come  home.  This  was  a  disappointment  to 
me.  I  wanted  to  get  the  job  finished.  My 
men  went  on  filling  sandbags  from  the  same 
place  last  night  and  discovered  the  remains 
of  the  late  owner  of  the  sword  bayonet.  He 
has  now  been  decently  buried,  with  a  little 
wooden  cross  marked  — 

TO  AN  UNKNOWN   FRENCH   SOLDIER 

R.I.P. 

When  you  read  in  the  newspapers,  that  a 
trench  was  lost  or  taken,  just  think  what  it 
means.  Think  what  happens  to  the  men 
in  the  trenches;  that's  the  part  of  it  we  see. 
Stretchers  pass  by  all  day.  Since  I  have 
been  here  the  cemetery  has  grown  —  a  new 

ii8 


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A   IRK.NCIi    Si^LDlKR 


Crumps 

mound  —  a  simple  wooden  cross.  Nobody 
talks  about  it,  but  everybody  wonders  who's 
next.  The  men  here  are  splendid,  the  best 
in  the  world,  and  the  officers  are  gentlemen. 

We  have  moved  to  the  famous  Langhof 
Chateau  on  the  Lille  road.  This  is  supposed  to 
have  belonged  to  Hennessey  of  "  Three  Star" 
fame,  but  the  Germans  had  been  through  the 
wine  cellars.  We  looked  very,  very  carefully, 
but  only  found  empties.  My  batman  has 
made  me  comfortable.  I  'm  writing  this  on  a 
washstand;  in  front  of  me  I  have  a  bunch 
of  roses  in  a  broken  vase.  My  trench  coat 
is  hanging  on  a  nail  from  a  coat-hanger.  A 
large  piece  of  broken  wardrobe  mirror  has 
been  nailed  up  to  a  beam  for  my  use.  One 
of  the  men  just  came  in  to  ask  if  a  trousers 
press  would  be  of  any  use.  We  have  a  fine 
little  bureau  cupboard  of  carved  oak;  we 
use  this  for  the  rations.  A  pump,  repaired 
with  the  leather  from  a  German  helmet,  has 
been  persuaded  to  work  and  has  been  busy 
ever  since.    The  roof  of  my  cellar  is  arched 

119 


Crumps 

brick  and  has  a  few  tons  of  fallen  debris  on 
the  floor  upstairs.  That  strengthens  it.  It 
is  shored  up  from  Inside  with  rafters.  This 
makes  the  roof  shell-proof,  except  for  big 
shells,  and  the  enemy  always  use  big  shells. 
The  cellar  floors  are  concrete. 

It  is  very  strange  the  lightness  with  which 
serious  things  are  taken  by  men  here,  and  it 
took  mc  some  time  to  understand  it.  I  met 
a  young  captain  of  the  Royal  Marine  Artil- 
lery who  was  in  charge  of  a  battery  of  trench 
mortars.  He  was  telling  me  of  how  one  of  his 
mortars  and  the  crew  were  wiped  out  by  a 
direct  hit.  He  referred  to  it  as  though  he 
had  just  missed  his  train. 

Two  days  later  I  went  up  with  the 
Machine-Gun  Officer  of  the  Second  Gor- 
dons to  look  at  a  piece  of  ground.  To  get 
there  we  had  to  crawl  on  our  hands  and 
knees.  In  one  part  of  our  journey  we  came 
to  a  sunken  road.  The  day  was  fine,  so 
we  lay  there.  He  asked  me  about  Canada. 
He  wanted  to  know  something  about  the 
settler's  grant.     He  said:  "Of  course  you 

I20 


Crumps 

know  after  a  chap  has  been  out  here  in  the 
open,  it  will  be  impossible  to  go  back  again 
to  office  life."  I  boosted  Canada  and  sud- 
denly the  irony  of  the  situation  occurred  to 
me.  Here  we  were  lying  down  in  a  road 
quite  close  to  the  German  lines,  so  close  that 
it  would  be  suicide  to  even  stand  up,  and 
yet  here  we  were  calmly  discussing  the  mer- 
its of  Canadian  emigration.  I  commented  on 
this  and  he  replied:  "My  dear  fellow,  when 
you  have  been  out  as  long  as  I  have,  you 
will  come  to  realize  that  being  at  the  front 
is  a  period  of  intense  boredom  punctuated 
by  periods  of  intense  fear,  and  that  if  you 
allow  yourself  to  be  carried  away  by  depres- 
sion it  will  be  your  finish."  He  had  been  out 
since  just  after  Mons. 

I  remembered  this  and  I  found  that  the 
nonchalant  and  care-free  attitude  of  the  av- 
erage British  ofiicer  was  really  a  mask  and 
simulated  to  keep  his  mind  off  the  whole 
beastly  business:  this  great  big  dirty  job 
which  white  people  must  do. 


121 


Crumps 

I  was  sitting  one  afternoon  by  the  side  of 
the  canal  bank  about  two  hundred  yards 
in  front  of  my  chateau  having  tea  with  the 
officers  of  the  East  Yorks  when  suddenly 
the  chateau-smashing  started  again.  To  go 
back  was  dangerous  and  useless.  My  men 
were  under  cover,  resting,  so  that  they 
would  be  ready  for  the  night  work.  The 
shelling  was  intermittent.  One  shell  went 
over  and  presently  I  heard  crack,  —  crack,  — 
boom,  crack,  crack,  —  crack;  my  heart  was  in 
my  boots  and  I  was  unable  to  move. 

The  colonel  listened  for  a  few  seconds, 
then  said:  "Keene,  do  you  know  what  that 
is?"  I  lied:  "No,  sir."  I  thought  it  was 
the  explosion  of  my  machine-gun  bullets  in 
their  web  belts  and  I  dreaded  to  go  up  to  see 
my  section.  I  had  worked  with  them  and 
tried  hard  to  be  a  good  officer  and  the  feel- 
ing that  I  should  probably  only  find  their 
mangled  remains  sickened  me.  The  colonel 
said:  "That's  the  'Archie'  in  Bedford  House. 
I  think  the  last  *  crump '  got  it.  You  two  "  — 
indicating  myself  and  another  officer  —  "go 

122 


Crumps 

up  and  see  if  we  can  do  anything.  See  if 
they  want  a  working  party  and  let  me 
know." 

We  started  to  run.  On  the  way  up  I 
looked  into  the  cellars  to  see  the  men  whom 
I,  the  minute  previously,  had  mourned  for, 
and  found  two  asleep,  three  hunting  through 
their  shirts,  and  the  rest  breaking  the  army 
orders  by  "shooting  craps."  From  Bedford 
House  a  long  trail  of  smoke  was  rising  and 
the  explosions  became  louder.  We  suddenly 
discovered  the  "Archie"  in  flames.  It  was 
in  the  courtyard  and  for  camouflage  had 
been  covered  with  branches.  It  was  mounted 
on  an  armored  Pierce-Arrow  truck.  The 
"crump"  had  hit  it,  and  gasoline,  paint, 
branches,  and  hubs  were  supplying  the  fuel 
which  was  cooking  out  the  ammunition,  the 
crack,  cracky  being  the  report  of  single  shells, 
whereas  one  loud  boom  signified  the  explosion 
of  an  entire  box.  These  shells  were  going  off 
in  all  directions  and  it  became  dangerous  to 
stay  too  near. 

The  flames  on  the  car  were  of  pretty  colors. 
123 


Crumps 

It  Is  surprising  the  amount  of  inflammable 
material  there  is  on  a  car.  The  late  owner 
of  the  car,  a  lieutenant  In  the  Royal  Marine 
Artillery,  was  cursing  In  a  low,  but  emphatic, 
marine  manner,  and  several  other  officers 
from  nearby  batteries  were  attracted  by  the 
noise  and  the  pyrotechnic  display.  I  spoke 
to  the  lieutenant  and  sympathized  with  him, 
and  he  retorted:  "Gott  strafe  Germany. 
Why  they  should  hit  the  'bus'  when  I  have 
a  brand-new  pair  of  trench  boots  that  I  had 
never  worn,  I  dunno."  Just  then  and  there 
the  case  cooked  out  and  a  piece  of  shell  cut 
between  us  and  buried  itself  deep  In  the  sup- 
port of  a  dugout,  so  we  got  under  cover. 

In  the  group  was  a  splendid  type  of  army 
chaplain.  He  came  over  almost  at  the  start 
of  the  war  and  had  seen  a  great  deal  of  the 
open  warfare  at  the  commencement  of 
hostilities.  He  said:  "My  friend  Fritz  is 
not  through;  he'll  try  to  do  some  more  yet." 
As  the  smoke  died  down  and  the  cracking 
stopped,  the  enemy  decided  that  an  attempt 
would  be  made  either  to  carry  out  salvage 
»  124 


will/,  MAXdS" 


Crumps 

of  whatever  they  had  hit  or  else  we  would 
try  to  get  the  wounded  away.  So  without 
any  preliminary  warning  the  whole  area  was 
covered  by  a  battery  fire  of  whiz  bangs, 
and  the  shrapnel  bullets  came  down  like 
rain,  several  men  being  hit.  The  fire  event- 
ually died  down  and  the  wreck  was  allowed 
to  cool  off.  The  "Archies"  are  used  so 
much  to  keep  the  aeroplanes  up,  and  next 
to  the  loss  of  his  boots  the  officer  in  charge 
was  worried  by  the  fact  that  the  enemy 
would  send  an  aeroplane  over  to  see  what 
they  had  hit.  It  was  very  necessary  to 
keep  the  planes  away,  because  at  this  time 
there  were  one  hundred  and  fourteen  bat- 
teries of  artillery  in  the  neighborhood. 

Later  on  the  battery  commander  came 
down,  and  as  he  looked  at  the  red-hot  armor 
plates  he  said:  "Five  thousand  pounds  gone 
up  in  smoke.  Sorry  I  missed  the  fireworks.'* 
The  Divisional  general  called  him  up  at  the 
dugout  and  gave  him  areas  for  the  distribu- 
tion of  the  four  anti-aircraft  guns  and  cars 
comprising  his  battery.  After  he  was  through 
125 


Crumps 

the  commander  replied:  "Very  good,  sir,  that 
will  be  done  with  all  the  guns  except  the 
third  gun."  The  voice  over  the  wire  became 
very  dignified,  a  preliminary  to  becoming 
sulphuric.  "What  do  you  mean,  all  but 
the  third  gun?"  "Because,  sir,  the  enemy 
has  just  *  crumped'  the  third  gun  and  all 
that  remains  of  it  is  scrap  iron." 

One  of  the  battalions  has  a  fine  victrola 
in  the  officers'  mess  dugout  with  a  good 
selection  of  records.  I  have  heard  Caruso 
accompanied  on  the  outside  by  an  orchestra 
of  guns.  It  was  a  wonderful  mixture. 
Speaking  of  canned  music  reminds  me  we 
have  a  small  portable  trench  machine, 
which  closes  up  like  a  valise,  easily  handled 
■  and  carried  about.  One  man  near  had  a 
box  full  of  needles  distributed  in  his  back 
by  a  bomb;  he  considers  himself  disgraced; 
he  says  it  will  be  kind  of  foolish  in  years  to 
come  to  show  his  grandchildren  twenty-fiv6 
or  thirty  needles  and  tell  them  that  they 
were  the  cause  of  his  wounds. 

The  Tommies  play  mouth  organs  a  great 
126 


Crumps 


deal  and  it  Is  much  easier  to  march  to  the 
sound  of  one,  even 

'Ere  we  are;  'ere  we  are, 

'Ere  we  are  agin. 
We  beat  'em  on  the  Marne, 
We  beat  'em  on  the  Aisne, 
We  gave  'em  'ELL  at  Neuve  Chapelle, 

And  'ere  we  are  agin  — 

sounds  well  with  the  addition  of  a  little 
music. 

Anything  is  used  for  trench  work;  often 
if  we  waited  for  the  proper  materials  we 
should  be  uncomfortable,  so  it  is  one  of 
the  qualifications  of  a  good  soldier  to  find 
things.  Sometimes  we  steal  material  be- 
longing to  other  units,  then  stick  around 
until  the  owners  come  back  and  help  them 
look  for  them;  however,  it  is  always  ad- 
visable to  steal  materials  from  juniors  in 
rank;  if  they  find  it  out,  and  are  senior, 
then  you  are  In  for  a  one-sided  strafe. 

One  of  the  other  battery  subalterns  found 

a  deserted  carpenter's  shop  and  he  let  his 

men  loose  to  dismantle  It.     They  took  the 

parts  of  steel  machines  and  used  them  for 

127 


Crumps 

the  construction  of  a  dugout.  One  man 
said,  "It's  like  coming  home  drunk  and 
smashing  up  the  grand  piano  with  an  axe.'* 
They  must  have  attracted  the  attention  of 
the  ever-alert  Boche,  for  no  sooner  had  they 
moved  out  than  the  place  was  shelled  to 
the  ground.  Everything  I  now  look  at 
with  an  eye  to  its  value  for  trench  construc- 
tion; thus,  telegraph  poles,  doors,  iron 
girders,  and  rails  are  more  valuable  to  us 
out  here  than  a  Rolls  Royce. 

Slang  or  trench  language  Is  used  univer- 
sally. My  own  general  talks  about  "Wipers,'* 
the  Tommy's  pronunciation  of  Ypres,  and 
I  have  seen  a  reference  to  "Granny"  (the 
fifteen-inch  howitzer)  in  orders  "mother"  is 
the  name  given  to  the  twelve-inch  howitzer. 
The  trench  language  is  changing  so  quickly 
that  I  think  the  staff  in  the  rear  are  unable 
to  keep  up  to  date,  because  they  have  re- 
cently issued  an  order  to  the  effect  that 
slang  must  not  be  used  in  official  corre- 
spondence. Now  instead  of  reporting  that 
128 


THE    ■CRUMl'" 


Crumps 

a  "dud  Minnie"  arrived  over  back  of  "mud 
lane,"  it  is  necessary  to  put,  "I  have  the 
honor  to  report  that  a  projectile  from  a 
German  Minnenwerfer  landed  in  rear  of 
Trench  F  26  and  failed  to  explode."  ' 

Sometimes  names  of  shells  go  through' 
several  changes.  For  example,  high  explosives 
in  the  early  part  of  the  war  were  called  "black 
Marias,"  that  being  the  slang  name  for  the 
English  police  patrol  wagon.  Then  they 
were  called  "Jack  Johnsons,"  then  "coal 
boxes,"  and  finally  they  were  christened 
"crumps"  on  account  of  the  sound  they 
make,  a  sort  of  cru-ump!  noise  as  they 
explode.  "Rum  jar"  is  the  trench  mortar. 
"Sausage"  is  the  slow-going  aerial  torpedo, 
a  beastly  thing  about  six  feet  long  with  fins 
like  a  torpedo.  It  has  two  hundred  and  ten 
pounds  of  high  explosive  and  makes  a  terrible 
hole.    "Whiz  bang"  is  shrapnel. 

Shelling  is  continuous.  We  have  thousands 

of  pieces  of  shells  and  fuse  caps  about  the 

premises.    I  have  in  front  of  me  a  fragment 

of  a  shell  about  fourteen  inches  long  and 

129 


Crumps 

about  four  and  one-half  Inches  across,  which 
came  from  a  German  gun.  The  edges  are 
so  sharp  that  It  cuts  your  hand  to  hold  It. 
I  use  it  as  a  paper-weight. 

This  morning  I  experienced  a  wonderful 
surprise.  I  had  gone  up  to  one  of  the  North 
Stafford  Batteries  to  borrow  a  clinometer. 
The  major,  while  he  was  getting  the  instru- 
ment for  me,  casually  remarked:  "There's 
yesterday's  'Times'  on  the  bench  If  you  care 
to  look  at  It."  I  turned  first  to  the  casualty 
list  and  later  to  the  "London  Gazette"  for 
the  promotions,  and  wholly  by  accident 
perused  carefully  the  Motor  Machine  Gun 
Service  list  and  there  noted  the  announce- 
ment, "Keene,  Louis,  2d  Lieut.,  to  be  ist 
Lieut.,"  and  for  a  fact  this  was  the  "official" 
intimation  that  I  had  been  promoted.  I  had 
a  couple  of  spare  "pips",  rank  stars.  In  my 
pocket-book,  so  I  got  my  corporal  to  sew 
them  on  right  away. 

We  are  all  very  happy  at  times,  very  dirty, 
and  covered  with  stings  and  bites;  have  no 
130 


Crumps 

idea  how  long  we  are  to  remain  up.  Getting 
used  to  the  shell  fire,  and  can  sleep  through 
it  if  it's  not  too  close.  When  it  comes  near 
it  makes  you  ver>^  thoughtful.  Still  working 
at  night  and  resting  during  the  day.  Made 
another  emplacement  for  one  of  my  machine 
guns  last  night;  had  twenty  men  digging; 
surprising  how  fast  men  dig  when  the  bullets 
are  flying. 

It's  about  2  A.M.  We  have  just  come  in. 
My  new  emplacement  is  splendid;  we've 
made  it  shell-proof  and  have  it  ready  for 
firing.  I  was  coming  home  this  afternoon 
after  having  been  to  the  fire  trenches  when 
I  heard  a  shout:  "Keene!"  I  looked  up  on 
the  canal  bank  and  I  saw  the  general  with 
one  of  his  A.D.C.'s  sitting  watching  an 
aeroplane  duel.  "I've  come  up  to  see  your 
gun  position,  Keene."  I  saluted,  waited 
for  him,  and  took  him  to  it.  It  is  below  the 
level  of  the  ground  under  tons  of  bricks  in 
the  ruins  of  a  farmhouse.  He  was  standing 
on  the  roof  of  it  and  said,  "Well,  where 's  the 

131 


Crumps 

emplacement?"  "You're  standing  on  it,  sir." 
*'Tut,  tut,  'pon  my  word,  that's  good."  He 
was  delighted  and  congratulated  me  on  it. 
My  preliminary  work  under  the  eyes  of  the 
general  has  gone  off  quite  well.  I  start 
firing  to-night. 

Intimacy  between  generals  and  lieutenants 
is  unusual,  but  it  looks  as  if  mine  had  taken 
an  interest  in  me,  because  when  he  noticed 
my  insect-bitten  face,  he  sent  me  down  some 
dope  he  had  used  with  good  effect  in  India. 
I  expect  the  mosquitoes  in  India  were  the 
ordinary  kind,  but,  believe  me,  trench 
"skeeters"  are  constructed  differently  and 
are  proof  against  the  general's  pet  concoction. 

I  have  several  miners  in  my  section  who 
take  a  personal  pride  in  the  digging  and 
shoring  up  of  dugouts.  So  far  the  other 
two  sections  of  the  Battery  are  always 
behind  in  this  work  but  they  may  look 
better  on  parade. 

The  canal  has  one  big  lock  suitable  for 
swimming;  a  lot  of  "jocks"  were  bathing 
there  to-day.  I  ordered  a  bathing  parade 
132 


Crumps 

for  my  section.  Later  I  found  that  the 
swimming  had  livened  three  Germans,  long 
submerged  —  the  bathing  parade  Is  off. 

A  Belgian  battery  commander  has  just 
wakened  up  and  his  shells  are  rattling  over- 
head. From  the  fire  trenches  an  Incessant 
rattle  of  rifles  is  heard;  all  the  bullets  seem 
to  come  over  here;  constantly  the  whine  of 
a  musical  ricochet  bullet  Is  heard.  Other- 
wise things  are  dead  quiet.  It's  getting  on 
for  three,  so  I  'm  going  to  bed  in  my  blankets 
on  one  of  the  late  chateau  owner's  splendid 
spring  mattresses  and  carved  oak  bedstead. 
Oh!  how  nice  it  would  be  to  sleep  without 
lice.  From  an  adjoining  cellar  my  section 
are  snoring,  and  I'm  going  to  add  to  the 
chorus.     Good-night,  everybody. 

We  have  been  having  Sunday  "hate." 
Eight-Inch  crumps  are  once  more  busting 
"up"  the  chateau.  How  they  must  detest 
this  place.  My  tea  and  bully  beef  are 
covered  with  dust  of  the  last  shell.  You 
have  no  idea  how  terrible  the  shell-fire  is. 
133 


Crumps 

First  you  hear  the  whistle  and  then  a  ter- 
rific burst  which  shakes  the  ground  for  a 
hundred  yards  around;  when  it  clears  away 
you  find  a  hole  ten  feet  across  and  six  feet 
deep.  At  least  fifteen  have  dropped  around 
us  in  the  last  half  hour. 

This  place  is  n't  somewhere  in  France,  it's 
somewhere  in  Hell!  It  has  been  the  scene 
of  a  great  many  encounters;  decayed  French 
uniforms,  old  rifles,  ammunition  and  leather 
equipment  and  bundles  of  mildewed  tobacco 
leaves  are  strewn  all  over  the  place.  I 
found  the  chin-strap  of  a  German  "Pickel- 
haube"  in  the  grounds,  the  helmet  of  a 
French  cuirassier,  and  the  red  pants  of  a 
^ouave,  close  together.  When  digging  in  the 
trenches  or  anywhere  near  the  firing  line 
you  have  to  be  careful :  corpses,  dead  horses, 
and  cattle  are  buried  everywhere.  I'm 
building  a  trench  to  my  emplacement  and 
we  have  a  stinking  cow  in  the  direct  line; 
this  will  have  to  be  buried  before  we  can  cut 
through. 

Everybody  is  cheerful  and  going  strong. 
134 


Crumps 

Yesterday  some  of  my  men  went  swim- 
ming in  the  moat  of  the  chateau;  a  shell 
dropped  in  the  water  near  them,  and  threw 
up  a  lot  of  fish  on  to  the  bank.  That  kind 
of  discouraged  the  Tommies  swimming,  so 
they  cooked  the  fish  and  decided  that  safety 
comes  before  cleanliness  out  here. 

It's  hot  and  sticky,  and  when  you  have 
to  wear  thick  clothes  and  equipment  it  makes 
you  very  uncomfortable,  but  it's  all  in  the 
game. 

All  through  the  night  we  fired  single  shots 
from  a  machine  gun;  my  orders  were  to  fire 
between  half-past  eight  at  night  and  four 
o'clock  in  the  morning.  We  have  a  number 
of  guns  doing  this.  It  harasses  the  enemy 
and  keeps  them  from  sleeping;  anything 
that  will  wear  a  man  down  is  practiced 
here. 

I've  constructed  a  fire  emplacement 
amongst  the  ruins  underground;  to  get  to 
it  you  have  to  travel  through  a  tunnel 
eighteen  feet  long;  inside  it's  very  damp.  I 
was  working  with  my  corporal,  crouched  up; 
^35 


Crumps 

we  were  both  wet  and  cold,  and  so  to  cheer 

things  up  every  now  and  again  we  let  off  a 
few  rounds  and  warmed  our  hands  on  the 
barrel.  Outside  it  poured  with  rain,  and 
mosquitoes  sought  refuge  inside  and  mealed 
off  me.  The  corporal  was  immune.  I  had 
a  water  bottle  full  of  whiskey  and  water. 
We  used  it  to  keep  out  the  cold,  but  it  wasn't 
strong  enough.  In  a  case  like  that  you  need 
wood  alcohol.  I  would  like  to  have  had  some 
Prohibitionists  with  me  here.  We  had  no 
light  except  the  flash  of  the  gun  and  the 
enemy  star  shells. 

At  daybreak  I  came  home  dead  beat.  I 
got  into  my  cellar,  was  so  tired  that  I  threw 
myself  down  on  the  bed  and  wrapped  myself 
up  in  my  blankets,  boots,  mud,  lice  and  all. 
I  had  n't  been  asleep  long  before  the  Huns 
started  "hating"  the  chateau.  They  have 
put  over  twenty-five  large  calibre  shells  into 
my  place,  the  grounds  and  the  house.  They 
are  still  at  it.  Every  time  a  shell  bursts  it 
makes  a  hole  big  enough  to  bury  five  horses, 
and  it  shakes  the  foundations  all  round.  The 
136 


Crumps 

shells  are  bigger  than  usual.  The  smoke 
and  earth  are  blown  up  fifty  or  sixty  feet 
in  the  air.  The  effect  is  a  moral  disruption. 
Why  canH  they  keep  that  cotton  out  of  Germany  ? 
I  have  divided  my  section  up  into  two 
teams,  one  in  the  cellars  and  one  in  the  gun- 
pits.  I  relieve  them  every  twenty-four 
hours,  and  I  practically  have  to  be  in  both 
places  at  once,  but  I  have  got  a  telephone  in 
between  the  two  places.  I  have  it  by  my  bed 
so  that  I  can  constantly  know  how  things  are 
going.  However,  the  wire  is  cut  two  or  three 
times  a  day  by  bullets  and  shell  splinters,  my 
linesman  has  a  constant  job. 
i  Fired  all  night;  came  back  at  six  o'clock 
this  morning,  very  tired.  Had  a  telegram 
from  the  general  to  fire  two  thousand 
rounds  in  twenty-four  hours;  this  is  quite 
hard  work.  Actually  we  could  fire  the  lot 
in  five  minutes,  but  it  would  attract  too 
much  attention.  The  enemy  use  whole  bat- 
teries of  artillery  to  blot  out  machine  guns 
which  attract  attention,  so  we  have  to  fire 
single  shots. 

137 


Crumps 

'  We  have  for  neighbors  four  dead  cows  and 
an  unexploded  six-inch  shell,  liable  to  go  off 
any  time,  all  in  a  radius  of  one  hundred  yards. 
We  have  smashed  holes  through  five  walls 
so  that  we  can  go  through  the  ruins  un- 
observed. In  one  place  we  pass  over  a  dead 
cow,  and  in  another  we  wade  through  several 
tons  of  rotten  potatoes,  and  I  believe  we 
have  a  corpse  handy;  and  part  of  our 
trench  goes  through  another  heap  of  rotten 
mangles.  I'm  an  authority  on  smells.  I 
can  almost  tell  the  nationality  of  a  corpse  now 
by  the  smell.  It  will  soon  be  necessary  to 
wear  our  smoke-helmets  to  go  into  the  em- 
placement. I  don't  think  that  I  have  told 
you  that  I  cross  the  Yser  canal  about  six 
times  a  day.  I'd  been  up  a  week  before  I 
knew  what  it  was.  Now  it  only  has  a  few  feet 
of  water  in  it,  the  rest  being  held  in  the  Ger- 
man locks.  The  part  I  cross  over  is  full  of 
bulrushes,  and  is  the  home  of  moor-hens, 
water  rats,  mosquitoes  and  frogs. 

On  one  side  of  the  canal  is  a  bank  which  is 
in  great  demand  by  the  machine  gunners,  who 
138 


Crumps 

are  able  to  get  a  certain  amount  of  height 
and  observation  of  their  fire.  The  general 
has  ordered  a  field  gun  to  take  up  a  position 
on  this  bank.  He  refers  to  it  as  his  "  Snip- 
ing eighteen-pounder."  It  is  firing  at  seven 
hundred  yards  right  at  the  German  line  and 
smashes  up  their  parapet  in  a  style  that  is 
pretty  to  watch.  The  machine  gunners  are 
in  a  great  state,  because  the  enemy  will  soon 
be  "searching"  with  his  artillery  for  the 
eighteen-pounder  and  the  lairs  of  the  smaller 
hidden  guns  will  suffer. 

The  men  are  hunting  for  lice  in  their  under- 
wear. This  is  the  kind  of  conversation  that 
is  coming  through  from  the  next  cellars: 
"I've  got  you  beat  —  that's  forty-seven." 
"Wait  a  minute"  —  a  sound  of  tearing  cloth 
—  "but  look  at  this  lot,  mother  and  young." 
"With  my  forty  and  these  you '11  have  to  find 
some  more."  They  were  betting  on  the 
number  they  could  find.  I  peel  off  my  shirt 
myself  and  burn  them  off  with  a  candle.  I 
glory  in  the  little  pop  they  make  when  the 
heat  gets  to  them.  All  the  insect  powder 
139 


Crumps 

in  the  world  has  been  tried  out  on  them 
and  they've  won. 

All  sentries  here  are  doubled;  one  thing  it's 
safer,  and  another  it's  company;  even  when 
things  are  quiet,  rats  and  mice  scamper  about 
and  it  sets  your  nerves  on  end.  Things  which 
are  inanimate  during  the  day  become  alive 
at  night.  Trees  seem  to  walk  about.  I 
wonder  what  it  tastes  like  to  have  a  real 
meal  in  which  tinned  food  does  not  figure; 
fancy  a  tablecloth;  my  tablecloth  is  a  double 
sheet  of  newspaper,  and  even  then  I  can't 
have  a  new  one  every  day. 

Had  a  good  night's  rest;  came  in  about 
twelve  o'clock  and  slept  until  eight-thirty 
this  morning.  One  eye  is  completely  closed 
up  by  a  sting. 

A  German  aeroplane  has  been  hovering 
over  our  positions  looking  for  my  gun,  so 
we  have  stopped  firing  and  all  movement. 
I  know  just  how  the  chicken  feels  when  the 
hawk  hovers  over  it.  Few  people  realize 
how  much  aeroplanes  figure  in  this  war, 
140 


Crumps 

for  war  would  be  much  different  without 
them.  They  do  the  work  of  Cavalry  only 
in  the  sky.  Whenever  they  come  over, 
the  sentries  blow  three  blasts  on  their 
whistles  and  everybody  runs  for  cover  or 
freezes;  guns  stop  firing  and  are  covered 
up  with  branches  made  on  frames.  If  men 
are  caught  in  the  open  they  stand  perfectly 
still  and  do  not  look  up,  for  on  the  aeroplane 
photographs  faces  at  certain  heights  show 
light;  dugouts  are  covered  over  with  trees, 
straw  or  grass.  We  use  aeroplane  photo- 
graphs a  great  deal;  they  show  trenches 
distinctly  and  look  very  like  the  canals  on 
Mars. 

The  Huns  have  been  "hating"  the  road 
one  quarter  of  a  mile  away  all  the  morning. 
That  does  n't  worry  us  a  bit  as  long  as  they 
don't  come  any  closer.  I'm  willing  always 
to  share  up  on  the  shelling. 

This  order  has  just  been  issued.    It  speaks 

for  itself:  — 

All  ranks  are  warned  that  bombs  and  grenades 
must  not  be  used  for  fishing  and  killing  game. 
141 


Crumps 

I  went  over  another  farm  to-day.  It  is 
one  of  the  well-ventilated  kind,  punched 
full  of  holes.  In  the  kitchen,  stables  and 
outhouses  there  was  a  most  wonderful  col- 
lection of  junk:  ammunition,  British  and 
French  bandoliers,  old  sheepskin  coats  aban- 
doned by  the  British  troops  from  last  winter, 
smashed  rifles,  bayonets,  meat  tins,  parts  of 
broken  equipment,  sandbags,  stacks  of  rotten 
potatoes  and  three  dead  cows.  The  fruit 
trees  are  laden  with  fruit,  and  vines  are  grow- 
ing up  the  houses  with  their  bunches  of  green 
grapes. 

In  the  garden  several  lonely  graves  are 
piled  high  with  old  boots,  straw,  American 
agricultural  implements,  rotting  sacks  and 
rubbish  of  every  description,  pieces  of  shells, 
barrels,  and  in  one  room  the  rusty  remains 
of  a  perambulator  and  sewing  machine;  rats 
are  the  only  inhabitants  now.  In  the  garret 
(the  staircase  leading  up  to  It  gone  long  ago) 
I  found  a  British  rifle,  bayonet  fixed,  ten 
rounds  in  the  magazine,  and  the  bolt  partly 
drawn  out.  Evidently  the  owner  was  in  the 
142 


Crumps 

act  of  reloading  his  chamber  when  something 
happened.  The  graves  were  dated  second 
and  third  months  of  this  year.  The  poor 
wooden  crosses  were  made  of  pieces  of  ration 
cases  and  the  names  written  with  an  in- 
delible pencil.  The  wretchedness  of  this 
farm,  which  was  flourishing  only  a  short 
time  ago,  is  very  pathetic. 

We  have  adopted  an  old  Belgian  mother 
cat  with  her  family  of  three  kittens  in  the 
dugout.  Now  we  find  that  three  more  little 
wild  kittens  are  living  in  the  bricks  which 
we  have  piled  around  the  windows  to  protect 
us  against  shells.  They  are  all  encouraged  to 
live  with  us  in  the  cellars.  I  like  cats,  and 
they  will  help  to  keep  the  rats  down.  Al- 
though some  of  the  rats  are  nearly  the  size 
of  cats. 

It  has  been  raining  again  and  the  trenches 
are  filling  up  with  slush.  We  carry  a  big 
trench  stick,  a  thick  sapling  about  four  feet 
long  with  a  ferrule  made  from  a  cartridge  of 
a  "ver>^-light"  (star  shell),  to  help  ourselves 
in  walking;  our  feet  are  beginning  to  get 
H3 


Crumps 

wet  and  cold  as  a  regular  thing  now,  and  we 
are  revetting  our  trenches  firm  and  solid  for 
the  winter.  Eleven  p.  m.  A  mine  under  the 
Boche  line  has  just  been  exploded.  The 
fighting  has  just  started  for  the  crater. 

I  took  a  German  Uhlan  helmet  from  a 
gentleman  who  had  no  further  use  for  it.  It 
was  pretty  badly  knocked  about;  still,  if  I 
can  get  it  home  it's  a  trophy. 

It's  about  eight  o'clock  Sunday  evening. 
All  day  long  shells  have  been  coming  over  like 
locomotives.  Every  five  seconds  one  goes 
over  into  the  old  town;  every  five  seconds 
for  the  last  two  hours.  The  chateau  has 
been  shelled  again  with  "crumps";  they  are 
such  rotten  shots;  if  only  they  would  put  in 
two  good  ones  in  the  center  it  would  blow  it 
to  bits  and  then  they  might  leave  us  alone. 
The  whole  of  the  ground  is  pitted  because 
they  can't  hit  it  squarely. 

My  work  lies  behind  the  front  line  and  In 
front  of  the  support,  firing  over  the  heads  of 
144 


Mk.    TOMMY    ATKINS 


Crumps 

the  men  in  the  main  trenches.  The  emplace- 
ment was  shelled  to-day;  one  shell  hit  the 
roof,  burst  and  knocked  over  one  of  my  men, 
cutting  his  head  open.  He  is  not  very  badly 
hurt,  but  has  gone  to  the  hospital.  The 
shelling   has   been   terrible   to-day. 

The  Germans  have  been  very  quiet  lately, 
and  working  parties  are  out  all  along  their 
front  lines  at  night  —  something 's  up.  Dirty 
work  can  be  expected  at  any  time  now.  We 
have  steel  helmets  to  protect  us  from  spent 
bullets  and  splinters.  They  look  like  the 
old  Tudor  steel  helmets  and  they  are  fine 
to  wash   in. 

You  have  no  idea  what  a  big  part  food 
plays  in  our  life.  Yesterday  morning  I  went 
with  the  machine-gun  officer  of  another  outfit 
to  crawl  about  looking  for  positions.  We 
were  in  an  orchard.  I  happened  to  look  up 
and  saw  ripe  plums  !  Terrified  lest  he  should 
see  them  and  forestall  me,  I  said,  *' Let's 
beat  it,  this  is  too  unhealthy,"  so  we  crawled 
back.  Last  night  in  the  light  of  a  big  moon 
such  as  coons  always  steal  watermelons  by, 

145 


Crumps 

a  section  officer  and  his  cook  crawled  to  the 
plum  tree.  The  section  officer,  being  large, 
stood  underneath  while  the  cook  climbed  the 
tree  and  dropped  them  Into  a  sandbag  held 
open  by  the  S.O.  They  got  about  ten 
pounds.  They  go  well  stewed,  believe  me. 
The  fact  that  bullets  whistled  through  the 
trees  most  of  the  time  made  them  taste 
better  to-day.  Sat  the  rest  of  the  night  in  a 
hedge  firing  at  the  Boches  with  a  Lewis  gun. 
I  struck  for  bed  just  as  dawn  broke. 

To-day  the  guns  are  again  "hating"  the 
chateau,  and  they  have  put  sixty  shells  in 
the  neighborhood.  Still,  "there's  no  cloud 
without  a  silver  lining.'*  I've  got  a  new 
way  home.  Instead  of  going  right  around 
the  kennels,  stables,  and  through  the  yards, 
I  go  "through"  the  greenhouse  direct, 
thereby  saving  a  lot  of  time.  The  Huns' 
calendar  is  wrong.  They  have  always  shelled 
me  Sunday  and  Wednesday.  To-day  's 
Tuesday! 

We  use  up  the  window  frames  and  door- 
146 


Crumps 

ways  for  kindling,  and  consequently  the 
doors  have  gone  long  ago.  I  have  been 
smashing  up  mouldings  this  morning  with  an 
axe.  We  prefer  the  dry  wood  which  Is  built 
Into  the  walls ;  It  burns  better  and  does  n't 
cause  smoke.  As  soon  as  smoke  is  seen  rising, 
the  enemy's  range-finders  get  busy  and  then 
we  suffer. 

Another^mine  went  up  yesterday;  nobody 
seems  to  know  where.  I  think  it  came  south 
from  the  French  lines;  it *^ rocked  the  whole 
neighborhood  for  miles.  The  ground  here  is 
a  kind  of  quicksand  for  a  few  feet  down,  and 
shock  is  easily  transmitted,  the  whole  ground 
being  honeycombed  with  mines,  old  trenches, 
shafts,  saps  made  by  French,  Belgians,  Ger- 
mans and  our  own  people. 

The  use  for  timber  of  any  description  is 
manifold;  every  little  bit  Is  used  up.  Our 
chief  source  of  supply  of  dry  wood  Is  from 
the  smashed-up  chateaux.  Langhof,myhome, 
has  been  punished  almost  every  day,  and 
after  the  bombardment  lets  up  men  from  the 
neighborhood  come  to  collect  the  wood  torn 
147 


Crumps 

up  by  the  shelling.  The  men  of  the  Tenth 
East  Yorks  came  up  this  morning  and 
climbed  to  the  remains  of  the  second  story, 
ripping  up  the  floor  boards.  The  enemy 
evidently  saw  them,  for  the  shelling  soon 
started.  We  have  been  shelled  often  here 
before,  but  it  was  nothing  compared  to  this. 
The  shells  were  carefully  placed  and  came 
over  with  disgusting  regularity.  The  build- 
ings rocked  and  the  whole  neighborhood 
shook.  Fountains  of  bricks,  mortar,  and 
dirt  were  spewed  up  Into  the  air.  Trees 
were  torn  to  shreds,  a  wall  In  front  of  me 
was  hit  —  and  disappeared,  a  lead  statue  of 
Apollo  in  the  garden  was  hurled  through  the 
air  and  landed  fifty  yards  away  crumpled 
up  against  the  balustrade  of  the  moat. 

We  were  in  our  cellars,  and  gradually  the 
shelling  crept  up  towards  us.  Slowly  a 
solemn  dread  which  soon  moulded  into  a 
sordid  fear  took  possession  of  my  being.  In 
a  flash  I  began  to  devise  a  philosophy  of 
death  for  my  chances  were  fading  withievery 
crash.  I  took  out  my  pocketbook,  containing 
148 


Crumps 

some  letters  from  my  mother  and  some  per- 
sonal things,  and  put  them  on  one  of  the 
beams,  so  that,  being  in  another  part  of  the 
building,  they  might  perhaps  be  found  some 
day.  The  shelling  continued  and  shells 
dropped  completely  round  the  cellars,  de- 
molishing nearly  everything  in  sight.  The 
enemy  evidently  wanted  to  obliterate  the 
whole  place.  The  smell  of  the  smoke  and 
the  dirt  from  the  debris  was  choking,  and 
every  minute  we  expected  to  be  our  last. 
Suddenly  it  stopped.  Philosophy  and  fear 
disappeared  simultaneously  as  I  sputtered 
out  a  choking  laugh  of  relief.  Then 
Hawkins,  my  servant,  in  a  scared  voice 
started,  and  the  others  joined  in,  singing 
the  old  marching  refrain  of  the  Training 
Camps:  — 

"Hail,  hail,  the  gang's  all  here, 
What  the  hell  do  we  care! 
'  What  the  hell  do  we  care! 

Hail,  hail,  the  gang's  all  here, 
What  the  hell  do  we  care  now!  " 

When  a  man  has  lived  night  after  night  in 
a  trench,  he  gradually  finds  it  quite  possible 
149 


Crumps 

to  snatch  a  good  night's  sleep.  In  other 
words,  it  is  merely  a  case  of  becoming  ac- 
climated to  rackets,  smells  and  food.  I  had 
always  been  able  to  sleep,  but  on  the  night 
following  the  bombardment  of  the  chateau  I 
just  could  not  doze  off.  I  thrashed  about 
continuously,  and  while  in  this  restless  state 
harbored  the  notion  that  trouble  was  brew- 
ing for  me.  Every  one  has  had  that  feeling, 
the  feeling  that  hangs  in  your  bones  and 
warns  you  to  watch  out.  Well,  that  is  how 
I  felt. 

At  last  the  sun  rose  and  with  It  came  a 
beautiful  morning,  warm  and  sunny.  I 
walked  out  amongst  the  ruins  to  see  the  ex- 
tent of  the  damage  caused  by  the  shelling  of 
the  previous  day.  I  was  waiting  for  the  stew 
which  was  cooking  on  a  little  fire  near  the 
side  of  the  cellar.  The  "dixie"  was  resting 
on  two  old  bayonets,  and  they  in  turn  rested 
on  bricks  at  either  side.  Towards  noon  a 
big  shell  came  over  and  landed  in  the  moat, 
covering  everything  around  with  a  coat  of 
evil-smelling,  black  mud.  This  shell  was  fol- 
150 


Crumps 

lowed  by  another,  arriving  in  the  part  of  the 
ruins  where  once  a  cow-shed  stood.  I  was 
talking  to  Hawkins,  my  batman,  when  I  saw 
him  dive  across  my  front  and  fall  flat  on  his 
face.  At  the  same  time  I  was  in  the  center 
of  an  explosion,  a  great  flame  of  light  and 
then  bricks,  wood  and  cement  flew  in  all 
directions.  For  a  few  seconds  I  thought  I 
was  dead,  then  I  picked  myself  up  and  saw 
that  blood  was  pouring  down  the  front  of  my 
jacket.  I  followed  up  the  stream  and  found 
that  my  right  hand  was  smashed  and  hanging 
limp.  My  men  rushed  out  and  I  told  them 
it  was  nothing,  but  promptly  fell  in  a  heap. 
When  I  came  to,  my  hand  was  wrapped  up 
In  an  emergency  bandage,  and  a  stretcher 
was  coming  down  from  Bedford  House,  an 
advanced  dressing-station,  the  next  house 
back.  To  the  delight  of  the  men  who  were 
carrying  it,  I  waved  them  away  and  told 
them  I  could  walk.  Assisted  up  to  the  dress- 
ing-station by  one  of  my  men,  I  made  it.  I 
then  made  a  discovery.  A  soldier  is  a  man 
until  he's  hit,  then  he's  a  case._  I  first  had 
151 


Crumps 

an  Injection  of  "anti-tetanus"  in  the  side, 
and  the  fact  was  recorded  on  a  label  tied  to 
my  left-hand  top  pocket  button.  The  doctor 
tied  me  up,  then  said:  "You'll  soon  be  all 
right.  Will  you  have  a  bottle  of  English 
beer  or  a  drop  of  whiskey?"  I  had  the  whis- 
key. I  needed  it.  All  the  time  I  was  there 
the  wounded  poured  in.  Seeing  them  I  felt 
ashamed  to  be  there  with  only  a  smashed 
hand.  A  corporal  came  in  with  both  hands 
blowTi  off  and  fifty-six  other  wounds.  He 
had  tried  to  save  the  men  in  his  bay  by  throw- 
ing back  a  German  bomb  and  it  had  gone  off 
in  his  hands.  Hawkins  came  up  later  on 
with  my  helmet  and  the  fuse  head  of  the  shell 
which  blew  me  up.  We  were  all  collected 
together  and  waited  in  the  dugouts  of  the 
dressing  station  until  dusk.  Several  shells 
came  close  to  us.  I  tried  to  write  to  my 
mother  with  my  left  hand,  so  that  when  she 
received  the  War  Office  cable  she  would 
know  I  was  able  to  write. 

Dusk  came,  then  night,  and  finally  the 
Ford  ambulance  cars  which  were  to  take  us 
152 


Crumps 

out  of  Hell.  It  was  a  beautiful  night.  Bel- 
gium looked  lovely.  The  merciful  night  had 
thrown  a  veil  over  the  war  scars  on  the  land 
and  a  moon  was  shining.  I  was  told  to  sit  up 
in  the  seat  with  the  driver.  We  traveled 
along  one  road,  then  the  shelling  became  so 
bad  that  the  drivers  decided  to  go  back  and 
take  another  road  which  was  running  nearly 
parallel.  Back  over  the  line  the  planes  of 
the  Royal  Flying  Corps  were  bombing  the 
Forest  of  Houltholst,  and  the  bursting  of  the 
shrapnel  from  the  German  anti-aircraft  guns 
pierced  the  velvet  of  the  sky  like  stars  as  we 
went  out  of  Belgium  into  France. 

Several  times  shells  burst  on  the  road,  and 
from  the  inside  of  the  car  came  the  stifled 
groans  of  the  men  as  the  Ford  hit  limbs  of 
trees  and  shell-holes. 

Our  first  stop  was  a  ruined  windmill,  the 
walls  of  which  were  nearly  six  feet  thick. 
Here  the  dangerous  cases  were  taken  off  and 
attended  to.  The  last  I  saw  of  the  corporal 
was  after  they  had  cut  off  his  coat  at  the 
153 


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seams  and  the  doctors  were  taking  a  piece 
of  wire  out  of  his  chest.  While  I  was  wait- 
ing a  chaplin  asked  me  if  I  would  like  a  cup 
of  coffee  or  some  whiskey,  realising  that  it 
would  take  some  time  to  get  the  coffee  made 
I  had  some  more  whiskey. 

I  was  given  two  more  tags,  which  this 
time  were  tied  on  buttons  at  the  top  of  my 
jacket.  I  stayed  here  about  two  hours,  then 
I  was  sent  to  a  clearing  hospital.  It  was 
here  that  I  met  the  first  nurses.  They  were 
two  fine,  splendid  women  who  were  wearing 
the  scarlet  hoods  of  the  British  Regular  Army 
nurse.  They  were  both  strong  and  quite 
capable  of  handling  a  man,  even  if  he  became 
delirious.  One  of  them  quickly  got  me  into 
bed.  I  apologized  for  my  terribly  dirty  state, 
but  I  was  told  that  it  made  no  difference; 
they  were  used  to  it.  To  be  between  clean 
sheets  again  was  wonderful.  I  felt  I  wanted 
to  go  to  sleep  forever.  Suddenly  a  roar,  and 
a  terrible  explosion.  The  hospital  was  be- 
ing bombed;  a  bomb  had  dropped  within  a 
hundred  yards  of  my  tent.  This  was  the 
154 


Crumps 

German  reprisal  for  our  bombing  Houltholst. 
They  deliberately  bombed  a  hospital.  The 
doctor  at  this  hospital  next  day  looked 
at  my  hand  and  said  in  a  nonchalant  way, 
"Looks  as  though  you  will  lose  it."  At  that 
time  it  did  n't  strike  me  as  a  great  loss  to  lose 
a  hand,  even  if  it  was  my  "painting  hand." 

The  hospital  train  of  the  next  day  was 
crow^ded  and  the  nurse  In  charge  of  my  coach 
was  narned  Keene.  We  tried  in  the  little 
spare  time  she  had  to  see  if  we  could  n't  work 
out  our  genealogy  and  find  out  if  we  were 
even  remotely  connected,  but  before  we  did 
we  came  to  the  station  of  Etaples  and  then 
went  to  the  Duchess  of  Westminster  Hos- 
pital at  Latouquet.  Here  I  was  operated  on. 
A  piece  of  Krupp's  steel  was  taken  out  of 
my  hand  and  a  rubber  drainage  tube  inserted 
instead.  The  Duchess  used  to  come  round 
a  great  deal  and  won  everybody's  affection. 
She  used  to  sit  on  my  bed  and  talk  to  me 
about  pleasant  things.  So  unlike  many 
people  who  visit  hospitals  and  ask  the 
patients  silly  war  questions,  such  as:  "How 
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does  it  feel  to  be  wounded?"  or  "Which 
hurts  more,  a  bayonet  or  a  shell  wound?" 
One  exasperated  Tommy,  when  asked  if  the 
shell  hit  him,  said;  "Naw,  it  crept  up  behind 
and  bit  me." 


IFQKin: 


CAMBRIDGE  .  MASSACHUSETTS 
U    .    5    .   A 


UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA  LIBRARY 

Los  Angeles 
This  book  is  DUE  on  the  last  date  stamped  below. 


ijEC  2     1965 


85 


I'orm  L'J-40m-7,'3G(C700s4)444 


..ifCSOUTHERMREGIOIVALL 


BRARV  FACILITY 


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000  709  874 


